Abstract
The integration of photonic crystal fibre (PCF) with various functional materials has greatly expanded the application regimes of optical fibre1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. The emergence of graphene (Gr) has stimulated new opportunities when combined with PCF, allowing for electrical tunability, a broadband optical response and all-fibre integration ability13,14,15,16,17,18. However, previous demonstrations have typically been limited to micrometre-sized samples, far behind the requirements of real applications at the metre-scale level. Here, we demonstrate a new hybrid material, Gr–PCF, with length up to half a metre, produced using a chemical vapour deposition method. The Gr–PCF shows a strong light–matter interaction with ~8 dB cm−1 attenuation. In addition, the Gr–PCF-based electro-optic modulator demonstrates a broadband response (1,150–1,600 nm) and large modulation depth (~20 dB cm−1 at 1,550 nm) under a low gate voltage of ~2 V. Our results could enable industrial-level graphene applications based on this Gr–PCF and suggest an attractive platform for two-dimensional material-PCF.
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Data availability
The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFA0200103, 2016YFA0300903, 2016YFA0300804), Beijing Graphene Innovation Program (Z181100004818003, Z161100002116028), NSFC (51432002, 51520105003, 51502077, 51522201, 11474006), Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (Z181100004218006), the National Equipment Program of China (ZDYZ2015-1), the Postdoctoral Innovative Personnel Support Program (BX20180013), The Science and Technology Development Project of Henan Province (182102210029), Zhongyuan Thousand Talents Program of Henan Province, the Young Talents Program of Henan University, the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division of the US Department of Energy under contract no. DE-AC02-05-CH11231 (SP2 program), the Academy of Finland (276376, 295777, 312297, 314810), the Academy of Finland Flagship Programme (320167, PREIN), the ERC (834742) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (820423, S2QUIP)
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Z.L. and K.L. supervised the project. Z.L. and K.C. conceived the material growth. K.L. and X.Z. conceived the optical measurement. K.C. and X.Z. carried out the material growth experiment and optical device measurements. X.C. performed theoretical modelling. K.C., R.Q., Y.C., Y.X., X.Z., C.L. and F.Y. conducted SEM, TEM, AFM and Raman characterizations. W.Y. suggested the optical experiments. F.Y. programmed the measurement software. Z.S. and F.W. suggested the modulator. All authors contributed to the scientific discussion and writing of the manuscript.
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Chen, K., Zhou, X., Cheng, X. et al. Graphene photonic crystal fibre with strong and tunable light–matter interaction. Nat. Photonics 13, 754–759 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-019-0492-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-019-0492-5
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