High-speed carrier-depletion silicon Mach-Zehnder optical modulators with lateral PN junctions

Abstract

This paper presents new experimental data from a lateral PN junction silicon Mach-Zehnder optical modulator. Efficiencies in the 1.4 to 1.9 V/cm range are demonstrated for drive voltages between 0 V and 6 V. High speed operation up to 52Gbit/s is also presented. The performance of the device which has its PN junction positioned in the center of the waveguide is then compared to previously reported data from a lateral PN junction device with the junction self-aligned to the edge of the waveguide rib. An improvement in modulation efficiency is demonstrated when the junction is positioned in the center of the waveguide. Finally, we propose schemes for achieving high modulation efficiency whilst retaining self-aligned formation of the PN junction.

Nanophotonic Pockels modulators on a silicon nitride platform

“…State-of-the-art silicon modulators rely on phase modulation through free carrier plasma dispersion in p–n 10 , p–i–n 11 , and MOS 12 junctions. Despite being relatively fast and efficient, these devices suffer from spurious amplitude modulation and high insertion losses.…”

Modulators in Silicon Photonics—Heterogenous Integration & and Beyond

“…Reed et al presents a PN MZM with modulation efficiency ranging between 1.4 to 1.9 V/cm over reverse bias voltages between 0 and 6 V. An insertion loss of 5 dB was measured with 4dB being attributed to the phase modulator and 1 dB loss from the splitter and combiner. A speed of 52 Gb/s was demonstrated [32].…”

Silicon-based phase shifters for high figure of merit in optical modulation

“…1 Silicon MZMs attract extensive attention for applications to low-cost smallfootprint optical transceivers and active optical cables in energy-efficient optical networks in telecom, datacom and onchip optical-interconnect applications. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] In telecom applications, in particular, high-speed optical modulation beyond 100 Gb/s/λ for optical-fiber transmission in advanced modulation formats such as dual-polarization quadrature phaseshift keying (DP-QPSK) has been achieved by using lateral PN-junction carrier-depletion silicon MZMs, which were monolithically integrated with optical circuits such as waveguides for polarization-division multiplexing (PDM) on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer in small chip footprints.…”