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High speed silicon photonic crystal waveguide modulator for low voltage operation

A high speed compact silicon modulator is experimentally demonstrated to work at a low driving voltage desirable for on-chip applications. As carrier injection is the only practical option for optical modulation in silicon, a lower limit of current density ( ∼ 10 4 A ∕ cm 2 ) exists for achieving gi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics letters 2007-02, Vol.90 (7), p.071105-071105-3
Main Authors: Gu, Lanlan, Jiang, Wei, Chen, Xiaonan, Wang, Li, Chen, Ray T.
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:A high speed compact silicon modulator is experimentally demonstrated to work at a low driving voltage desirable for on-chip applications. As carrier injection is the only practical option for optical modulation in silicon, a lower limit of current density ( ∼ 10 4 A ∕ cm 2 ) exists for achieving gigahertz modulation in the p - i - n diode configuration. Exploiting the slow group velocity of light in photonic crystal waveguides, the interaction length of this Mach-Zehnder interferometer-type silicon modulator is reduced significantly compared to conventional modulators. The required high current density is achieved with a low voltage ( 2 V ) by scaling down the interaction length to 80 μ m .
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/1.2475580