Plasmonic Organic Hybrid Modulators-Scaling Highest Speed Photonics to the Microscale

Complementing plasmonic slot waveguides with highly nonlinear organic materials has rendered a new generation of ultracompact active nanophotonic components that are redefining the state of the art. In this paper, we review the fundamentals of this so-called plasmonicorganic-hybrid (POH) platform. Starting from simple phase shifters to the most compact IQ modulators, we introduce key devices of high-speed data communications. For instance, all-plasmonic Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs) are reviewed and long-term prospects are discussed. This kind of modulator already features unique properties such as a small footprint (<20 mu m(2)), a large electro-optic bandwidth (>110 GHz), a small energy consumption (similar to 25 fJ/b), a large extinction ratio (9 25 dB) in combination with a record small voltage-length product of 40 V mu m. Finally, as an example for seamless integration we introduce novel plasmonic IQ modulators. With such modulators we show the generation of advanced modulation formats (QPSK, 16-QAM) on footprints as small as 10 mu m x 75 mu m. This demonstration ultimately shows how plasmonics can be used to control both phase and amplitude of an optical carrier on the microscale with reasonably low losses.