Review: Graphene oxide 2D thin films for high performance nonlinear integrated photonics

TL;DR

This review discusses the use of graphene oxide in nonlinear integrated photonics, highlighting its properties, fabrication methods, device applications, performance comparisons, and future challenges in the field.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of graphene oxide's role in nonlinear photonic devices, including recent advancements and comparative performance analysis.

Findings

Graphene oxide exhibits large optical nonlinearity and high flexibility.

Hybrid GO photonic devices show improved nonlinear performance.

The review identifies current challenges and future perspectives in GO photonics.

Abstract

Integrated photonic devices operating via optical nonlinearities offer a powerful solution for all optical information processing, yielding processing speeds that are well beyond that of electronic processing as well as providing the added benefits of compact footprint, high stability, high scalability, and small power consumption. The increasing demand for high performance nonlinear integrated photonic devices has facilitated the hybrid integration of novel materials to address the limitations of existing integrated photonic platforms, such as strong nonlinear optical absorption or an inadequate optical nonlinearity. Recently, graphene oxide (GO), with its large optical nonlinearity, high flexibility in altering its properties, and facile fabrication processes, has attracted significant attention, enabling many hybrid nonlinear integrated photonic devices with improved performance and novel capabilities. This paper reviews the applications of GO to nonlinear integrated photonics. First, an overview of GOs optical properties and the fabrication technologies needed for its onchip integration is provided. Next, the state of the art GO nonlinear integrated photonic devices are reviewed, together with comparisons of the nonlinear optical performance of different integrated platforms incorporating GO. Finally, the challenges and perspectives of this field are discussed.