Design and simulation of the optical amplitude-shift keying modulator using Fabry-Perot resonator coupled with graphene at near-infrared frequencies

An optical amplitude modulator operating at near-infrared frequencies is presented. The proposed modulator structure consists of a Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity coupled with graphene located in the middle of two dielectric Bragg mirrors. Graphene's presence as an active material with adjustable optical conductivity, as well as its effective interaction with powerful standing waves confined in the cavity, enables spectral tuning of the transmission spectrum. Since the resonator has a high quality factor, a small resonance frequency shift due to graphene Fermi energy change results in a huge change of the input light transmission value of the resonator, which makes it possible to achieve high modulation depth (MD). The results demonstrate that the proposed optical modulator has insertion loss lower than 0.1 and MD larger than 90%. It is believed that our study may be useful for optical wireless communication acting at near-infrared region. (C) 2021 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)