High-speed Silicon Electro-optic Modulator for Electronic Photonic Integrated Circuits
Author | : Fuwan Gan |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 184 |
Release | : 2007 |
ISBN-10 | : OCLC:191822909 |
ISBN-13 | : |
Rating | : 4/5 (09 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: (cont.) The excellent optical and carrier confinement possible in high-index contrast waveguide devices, together with the forward biased operation and the good thermal heat sinking due to the silicon slab close to the waveguide, enables high speed modulation with small signal modulation bandwidths beyond 20GHz, a V, times length figure of merit of V, - L = 0.5Vcm and an insertion loss of about 5.3 dB. Finally, all-optical switches based on optical carrier-injection in high index contrast Si/Si02 split-ridge-waveguide (SRW) couplers are proposed. The waveguide devices are suitable for the construction of low-loss optical switch matrices as well as fast optical switching. These devices exhibit robustness against fabrication tolerances, improved heat sinking, good carrier confinement and high uniformity in transmission over the entire C-band of optical communications in contrast to comparable devices based on buried or ridge waveguides. A reasonably low electrical switching power of 1-10mW is predicted for switching frequencies in the 1MHz-1GHz range. Faster switching speed can be achieved by carrier lifetime reduction.