All-optical intensity modulator by polarization dependent graphene-microfiber waveguide

We demonstrated all-optical intensity modulator based on polarization-dependent graphene-covered microfiber (GMF) waveguide. By controlling the polarization mode of incident light, a greatly adjustable enhanced interaction between the propagating light and the graphene can be obtained via the evanescent field of the microfiber. By employing 980-nm pump light and 1550-nm signal light in continuous wave, the strong light–graphene interaction enables a maximum modulation depth of ∼20.86 dB, and by pumping 980 nm wave pulses, we obtained the temporal response characteristics of signal light with modulation rate of 5.13 kHz. This all-optical intensity modulator is compatible with optical fiber systems, and features with ease of fabrication, and steerable high modulation depth, which show potential in graphene's applications such as all-optical switching and all-optical communications.