Reduction of switching voltage in GaAs/AlGaAs optical modulators on p-i-n rib waveguide by enhancing the quadratic electrooptic effect

Author

Park, Hwa Sun ; Choi, Wang Yeob ; Yi, Jong Chang ; Byun, Young Tae ; Kim, Sun Ho

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Hong Ik Univ., Seoul, South Korea

fYear

2000

fDate

2000

Firstpage

279

Lastpage

284

Abstract

An enhanced quadratic electro-optic effect is utilized in GaAs/AlGaAs optical modulators fabricated on a low-loss W-type p-i-n rib waveguide to obtain a switching voltage smaller than 1 V/mm. By analyzing the TE/TM mode dependence of the modulation characteristic, we found that the refractive index change due to the quadratic electrooptic effect is 10 times larger than that caused by the conventional linear electro-optic effect. The enhanced quadratic electro-optic effect is mainly due to the strong electric field confined in the thin depletion layer, which turned out to be the key factor in reducing the switching voltage

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; electro-optical modulation; electro-optical switches; gallium arsenide; optical waveguides; refractive index; rib waveguides; GaAs-AlGaAs; TE/TM mode dependence; optical modulators; p-i-n rib waveguide; quadratic electrooptic effect; refractive index; strong electric field; switching voltage; thin depletion layer; Cause effect analysis; Electrooptic modulators; Gallium arsenide; Optical modulation; Optical refraction; Optical variables control; Optical waveguides; PIN photodiodes; Tellurium; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Compound Semiconductors, 2000 IEEE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Monterey, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6258-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISCS.2000.947169

Filename

947169