Tunable slow light with graphene based hyperbolic metamaterial

Slow light has always been a topic of extreme interest for researchers and scientists in order to utilize the full potential of light in switching, memory devices and in quantum optics. However, slow light phenomena and its potential applications in switching and memory devices by tunable graphene based hyperbolic metamaterial have not still been introduced in literature. Here we theoretically propose and numerically analyze a graphene based tunable slow light device from the concept of controlling the group velocity of light in hyperbolic metamaterials. In THz range, graphene-dielectric stack can behave as hyperbolic metamaterials and hyperbolic metamaterials can demonstrate slow light phenomena while being cladded by air. By utilizing the tunability option of graphene, proposed devices can be made tunable, which is the most important criteria to manage the full advantage of slow light. It ultimately paves a fully new way to find novel applications in photonic switch, optical buffers and memory devices. Interestingly, in such graphene based devices, voltage will play a vital role to control the group velocity of light from slow to fast and the carriers are photons instead of electrons.