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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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Published in: | Applied physics letters 2007-02, Vol.90 (7), p.071105-071105-3 |
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Main Authors: | , , , , |
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Citations: | Items that this one cites Items that cite this one |
Online Access: | Get full text |
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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
. |
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ISSN: | 0003-6951 1077-3118 |
DOI: | 10.1063/1.2475580 |