Ultracompact (3 μm) silicon slow-light optical modulator
Abstract
Wavelength-scale optical modulators are essential building blocks for future on-chip optical interconnects. Any modulator design is a trade-off between bandwidth, size and fabrication complexity, size being particularly important as it determines capacitance and actuation energy. Here, we demonstrate an interesting alternative that is only 3 mm long, only uses silicon on insulator (SOI) material and accommodates several nanometres of optical bandwidth at 1550 nm. The device is based on a photonic crystal waveguide: by combining the refractive index shift with slow-light enhanced absorption induced by free-carrier injection, we achieve an operation bandwidth that significantly exceeds the shift of the bandedge. We compare a 3 mm and an 80 mm long modulator and surprisingly, the shorter device outperforms the longer one. Despite its small size, the device achieves an optical bandwidth as broad as 7 nm for an extinction ratio of 10 dB, and modulation times ranging between 500 ps and 100 ps.
Citation
Opheij , A , Rotenberg , N , Beggs , D M , Rey , I H , Krauss , T F & Kuipers , L 2013 , ' Ultracompact (3 μm) silicon slow-light optical modulator ' , Scientific Reports , vol. 3 , 3546 . https://doi.org/10.1038/srep03546
Publication
Scientific Reports
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2045-2322Type
Journal article
Description
This work is part of the research program of the Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM), which is financially supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO). The work is also supported by the research programs NanonextNL and MEMPHIS, funded by the Dutch ministry of economic affairs. We also acknowledge financial support by the EPSRC through the “UK Silicon Photonics” grant.Collections
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