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Subvolt high-speed free-space modulator with electro-optic metasurface

Nature Nanotechnology volume 20, pages 1625–1632 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Active metasurfaces incorporating electro-optic materials enable high-speed free-space optical modulators that show great promise for a wide range of applications, including optical communication, sensing and computing. However, the limited light–matter interaction lengths in metasurfaces typically require high driving voltages exceeding tens of volts to achieve satisfactory modulation. Here we present low-voltage, high-speed free-space optical modulators based on silicon-organic-hybrid metasurfaces with dimerized-grating-based nanostructures. By exploiting a high-Q resonant mode, normally incident light is effectively trapped within a submicrometre-scale silicon slot region embedded with organic electro-optic material. Consequently, highly efficient modulation is obtained, enabling data transmission at 50 Mbps and 1.6 Gbps with driving voltages of only 0.2 V and 1 V, respectively. These metasurface modulators can now operate at complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor-compatible voltage levels, allowing energy-efficient high-speed practical applications of active metasurfaces.

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Fig. 1: Metasurface modulator with an all-dielectric SOH dimerized resonator.
Fig. 2: Passive characterization of the fabricated devices.
Fig. 3: Active modulation of free-space light.
Fig. 4: High-speed modulation using an ultra-small device with integrated DBRs.

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Data availability

All numerical data are available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28281509 (ref. 59). Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Y. Nakano and A. Otomo for their support and fruitful discussions. G.S. thanks K. Saito for his help in building the measurement system. T.T. and G.S. thank Z. Han for providing insightful comments. T.T. thanks K. Ueda for fruitful discussions and his encouragement. This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI, grant numbers JP23H05444 (T.T.) and JP24KJ0557 (G.S.). The device was fabricated in part at Takeda Cleanroom with help of Nanofabrication Platform Center of School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo, Japan, supported by ‘Advanced Research Infrastructure for Materials and Nanotechnology in Japan’ of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), grant number JPMXP1224UT1115 (T.T.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Go Soma, Koto Ariu, Seidai Karakida, Yusuke Tsubai & Takuo Tanemura

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  1. Go Soma
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  3. Seidai Karakida
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Contributions

G.S. and T.T. conceived the device concept and experiments. G.S. performed the metasurface design, simulation, fabrication and experiments. K.A. developed the OEO process, constructed the poling set-up and assisted with the poling process. S.K. assisted with numerical simulation. Y.T. assisted with device fabrication. G.S. and T.T. wrote the paper with inputs from all authors. T.T. supervised the project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Go Soma or Takuo Tanemura.

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Competing interests

G.S. and T.T. are listed as inventors in a patent application related to this work, filed by the University of Tokyo, application number 2025-41949. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Nanotechnology thanks Hyounghan Kwon and Cosmin-Constantin Popescu for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Table 1 Comparison of modulation metrics in active electro-optic metasurfaces
Full size table

Extended Data Fig. 1 Benchmark comparison of this work against previously reported electro-optic metasurface modulators.

The modulation swing ΔR (top panel vertical axis), bandwidth (bottom panel vertical axis), and the required voltage Vreq to shift the resonance wavelength by an amount equal to its linewidth (horizontal axis) of experimentally demonstrated EO metasurface modulators in the literature. Our presented device exhibits the lowest Vreq and the highest modulation efficiency η = ΔR/Vreq. The bandwidth is also the highest among all dielectric resonating devices. The numerical values are listed in Extended Data Table 1.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Sections 1–4, Figs. 1–10 and Tables 1 and 2.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Source data of Fig. 1.

Source Data Fig. 2

Source data of Fig. 2.

Source Data Fig. 3

Source data of Fig. 3.

Source Data Fig. 4

Source data of Fig. 4.

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Soma, G., Ariu, K., Karakida, S. et al. Subvolt high-speed free-space modulator with electro-optic metasurface. Nat. Nanotechnol. 20, 1625–1632 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-025-02000-4

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