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An ultra-compact and highly stable optical numerical comparator based on Y-shaped graphene nanoribbons

  • Regular Article – Optical Phenomena and Photonics
  • Published:
The European Physical Journal D Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Research on artificial neural network computing based on conventional integrated circuit chips has made significant progress, but it faces technical bottlenecks such as reduced energy consumption, computing speed, and efficiency. So, it is seeking integrated chips based on optical interconnections to solve the current dilemma. Fortunately, the small size and very localized graphene surface plasmon waves offer the possibility of optical integrated chips. In this paper, we propose a graphene-based one-bit optical numerical comparator. The comparator is located on the top of a 0.4-μm2 rectangular dielectric layer, mainly consisting of Y-shaped graphene nanoribbons. The on/off effect of the graphene nanoribbons is achieved by applying an external voltage to change the chemical potential energy of the graphene switching bands. The proposed optical numerical comparator with 9.55-μm TM mode light achieves a minimum extinction ratio of 31.12 dB and amplitude modulation of 0.77 dB, as shown by the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. Compared with the current optical numerical comparators, it has the advantages of a high extinction ratio, small size, low loss, and high stability. In addition, the effect of process deviation of graphene nanoribbons on the reliability of the designed optical numerical comparator is analyzed by simulation. It is beneficial to developing integrated photonic devices and has some significance for developing ultra-high-frequency and integrating artificial neural network computing.

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Data Availability Statement

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. This manuscript has no associated data or the data will not be deposited. [Authors’ comment: The data contained in this article are all in the tables and figures in the article, that is, the data are displayed in the form of charts.]

Code availability

All of the required data from the utilized software can be delivered.

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Acknowledgements

We express our sincere thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

Funding

This work is partially funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (62161008), Guangxi Natural Science Foundation Joint Funding Project (2018GXNSFAA138115), Guangxi Key Laboratory of Automatic Detecting Technology and Instruments (YQ22110), Shanxi Province Science and Technology Major Program (No. 202201030201009), and the Open Project Program of Shanxi Key Laboratory of Advanced Semiconductor Optoelectronic Devices and Integrated Systems (No. 2023SZKF04).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Automatic Detecting Technology and Instruments, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin, 541004, People’s Republic of China

    Aijun Zhu, Lei Song & Cong Hu

  2. Jincheng Research Institute of Opto-Mechatronics Industry, Jincheng, 048000, Shanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Lei Cheng

  3. Shanxi Key Laboratory of Advanced Semiconductor Optoelectronic Devices and Integrated Systems, Jincheng, 048000, Shanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Aijun Zhu & Lei Cheng

  4. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843-3112, USA

    Rabi Mahapatra

Authors
  1. Aijun Zhu
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  2. Lei Song
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  3. Lei Cheng
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  4. Cong Hu
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  5. Rabi Mahapatra
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Theoretical research, simulation experiment, data collection, and analysis were performed by [AZ], [LS], [LC], [CH], and [RM]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [LS], and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Lei Cheng or Cong Hu.

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Zhu, A., Song, L., Cheng, L. et al. An ultra-compact and highly stable optical numerical comparator based on Y-shaped graphene nanoribbons. Eur. Phys. J. D 77, 169 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-023-00748-9

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