Fabrication of electro optical nano modulator on silicon chip

In this paper, we present the fabrication and preliminary measurements of a novel electro optical nano modulator on silicon chip based on light scattering by a movable 50 nm charged gold colloid particle. The idea is to modulate the 1.55 mu m light by electrically manipulating the highly conductive particle in a nano air gap created in a silicon waveguide to cause high scattering and absorption. With a length of 150 nm of the air gap, the expected modulation rates can exceed few GHz while being implemented on a highly dense silicon chip. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.