Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: Lowering the operating voltage of electro-optic modulators is desirable for a variety of applications, most notably in analog photonics and digital data communication. In particular for digital systems such as CPUs, it is desirable to develop modulators that are both temperature-insensitive and compatible with typically sub-2 V CMOS electronics; however, drive voltages in silicon-based Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs) currently exceed 1.8 V. Here, we show an MZI modulator based on an electro-optic polymer-clad silicon slot waveguide, with a halfwave voltage of only 0.69 V (corresponding to a 0.62 V(·)cm modulation figure of merit), and a bandwidth of 500 MHz. We also show that there are paths to significantly improve both the bandwidth and drive voltage.
Source: Journal of Lightwave Technology
Authors: Ran Ding, Tom Baehr-Jones, Woo-Joong Kim, Alexander Spott, Maryse Fournier, Jean-Marc Fedeli, Su Huang, Jingdong Luo, Alex K.-Y Jen, Larry Dalton, Michael Hochberg
Language: English
Topic: Photonic and Optical Devices
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2115087069