Mechanical Modulation of Hybrid Graphene Microfiber Structure

TL;DR

This paper explores the strain engineering of graphene-integrated microfiber systems, demonstrating significant in-line modulation and potential applications in fiber-based devices and strain sensing.

Contribution

It provides the first combined theoretical and experimental analysis of strain manipulation in graphene-microfiber systems, achieving large modulation effects.

Findings

Achieved up to 30% in-line modulation with ~5% strain

Demonstrated broadband, polarization-independent modulation

Provided insights into geometrical and wavelength factors affecting strain tuning

Abstract

Recently, the strain engineering of two-dimensional materials such as graphene has attracted considerable attention for its great potential in functional nanodevices. Here, we theoretically and experimentally investigate the strain manipulation of a graphene-integrated microfiber system for the first time. We analyze the influential factors of strain tuning, i.e., the geometrical parameters of the microfiber, the strain magnitude, and the probe-light wavelength. Moreover, we experimentally achieve in-line modulation as high as 30% with a moderate strain of ~5%, which is two orders of magnitude larger than previous results. The dynamic vibration response is also researched. The broadband, polarization-independent, cost-effective, strain-based modulator may find applications in low-speed modulation and strain sensing. Further, we believe that our platform may allow for all-in fiber engineering of graphene-analogue materials and provide new ideas for graphene-integrated flexible device design.