Rigorous calculation of nonlinear parameters in graphene-comprising waveguides

Abstract

We describe a rigorous formalism for the calculation of the nonlinear parameter of arbitrary three-dimensional nanophotonic graphene-comprising waveguides. Graphene is naturally implemented as a zero-thickness conductive sheet, modeled solely by complex linear and nonlinear surface conductivity tensors, whose values are extracted from theoretical models. This representation is compared to the more commonly employed equivalent bulk-medium representation and is found superior. We numerically calculate the nonlinear parameters of several optical waveguide archetypes overlaid with infinite graphene monolayers, including silicon-wire and plasmonic metal-slot and metal-stripe configurations. The metal-slot configuration offers the most promising performance for Kerr-type nonlinear applications. Finally, we apply the same formalism to probe the potential of graphene nanoribbon waveguide nonlinearity in the terahertz band.