Low-voltage, high extinction ratio carrier-depletion Mach-Zehnder silicon optical modulator

Author

Jianfeng Ding ; Hongtao Chen ; Ruiqiang Ji ; Lin Yang ; Yonghui Tian ; Lei Zhang ; Weiwei Zhu ; Yangyang Lu ; Rui Min ; Ping Zhou

Author_Institution

Optoelectron. Syst. Lab., Inst. of Semicond., Beijing, China

fYear

2011

fDate

13-16 Nov. 2011

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

6

Abstract

As a result of the low modulation efficiency of carrier-depletion Mach-Zehnder silicon optical modulator, it always needs a high voltage around 6 V, which is very difficult to supply in an integrated high-speed CMOS chip. We demonstrate a carrier-depletion Mach-Zehnder silicon optical modulator which works at a low voltage. Its coplanar waveguide electrode is carefully designed to make sure the electrical wave loss along the device is low. The device operates well at a data rate of 12.5 Gb/s, whose phase-shifter length is 2 mm. Voltages with the swinging amplitudes being 1 V and 2 V are applied to the device with the reverse bias voltages of 0.5 V and 0.8 V. The extinction ratios are 7.67 and 12.79 dB respectively.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; Mach-Zehnder interferometers; elemental semiconductors; high-speed integrated circuits; integrated optics; optical design techniques; optical modulation; optical phase shifters; silicon; Si; bit rate 12.5 Gbit/s; carrier-depletion Mach-Zehnder optical modulator; coplanar waveguide electrode; integrated high-speed CMOS chip; phase-shifter; voltage 0.5 V; voltage 0.8 V; voltage 1 V; voltage 2 V; Abstracts; Mach-Zehnder Interferometer; depletion; high extinction ratio; low voltage swing; silicon;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Communications and Photonics Conference and Exhibition, 2011. ACP. Asia

Conference_Location

Shanghai

ISSN

2162-108X

Print_ISBN

978-0-8194-8961-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1117/12.917997

Filename

6210716