O-band Silicon Ring Modulators with Highly Efficient Electro- and Thermo-Optic Modulation

As future computing systems increasingly demand higher bandwidth and energy efficiency, the development of faster and more efficient modulators is becoming a critical component of optical transceivers. In this paper, we present O-band silicon ring modulators (RMs) which are highly optimized in terms...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of lightwave technology 2024-10, p.1-7
Main Authors: Kim, Minkyu, Ban, Yoojin, Ferraro, Filippo, Coenen, David, Rajasekaran, Natarajan, Verheyen, Peter, Magdziak, Rafal, Sar, Huseyin, De Heyn, Peter, Velenis, Dimitrios, Absil, Philippe, Van Campenhout, Joris
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptive optics
Bandwidth
Electro-optic modulators
Electro-optical waveguides
Heating systems
Implants
metal heater
Modulation
Optical modulation
ring modulator
Silicon
silicon photonics
Substrates
undercut
vertical p-n junction
Virtual private networks
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Summary:As future computing systems increasingly demand higher bandwidth and energy efficiency, the development of faster and more efficient modulators is becoming a critical component of optical transceivers. In this paper, we present O-band silicon ring modulators (RMs) which are highly optimized in terms of electro- and thermo-optic modulations for an energy efficient optical I/O link. A highly optimized vertical p-n junction design is used to enhance the electro-optic efficiency, and fabricated RMs have 2dB better transmitter penalty and bandwidth trade-off than previously reported lateral p-n junction based RMs. To improve the thermo-optic efficiency, Si substrate undercut (UCUT) process module is introduced. The efficiency increases more than 2.7 times with UCUT as 106-GHz/mW (0.608nm/mW) with 5μm radius RM, and no performance degradation is observed with 50-Gb/s NRZ operation.
ISSN:0733-8724
1558-2213
DOI:10.1109/JLT.2024.3483313