Designer metamaterials using graphene for integrated nano-photonic applications

Optical modulators are essential components for optical communication systems. In this paper we introduce and discuss the concept of designer metamaterials in the context of graphene-based optical modulators. This is a very powerful tool, which enables device design with ultra-compact footprint, low energy consumption, and high speed. As an example, we design an integrated nano-photonic optical modulator. For a target modulation performance, i.e. modulation depth and insertion loss levels, we show that the designer metamaterial device footprint can be reduced with respect to what is possible in ridge waveguide approaches.