Silicon-integrated scandium-doped aluminum nitride electro-optic modulator
Abstract
Scandium-doped aluminum nitride (AlScN) with an asymmetric hexagonal wurtzite structure exhibits enhanced second-order nonlinear and piezoelectric properties compared to aluminum nitride (AlN), while maintaining a relatively large bandgap. It provides a promising platform for photonic integration and facilitates the seamless integration of passive and active functional devices. Here, we present the design, fabrication, and characterization of AlScN EO micro-ring modulators, introducing active functionalities to the chip-scale AlScN platform. These waveguide-integrated EO modulators employ sputtered AlScN thin films as the light-guiding medium, and the entire fabrication process is compatible with complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. We characterize the high-frequency performance of an AlScN modulator for the first time, extracting a maximum in-device effective EO coefficient of 2.86 pm/V at 12 GHz. The devices show a minimum half-wave voltage-length product of 3.12 V*cm and a 3-dB modulation bandwidth of approximately 22 GHz. Our work provides a promising modulation scheme for cost-effective silicon-integrated photonics systems.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2405.18717,
title = {Silicon-integrated scandium-doped aluminum nitride electro-optic modulator},
author = {Tianqi Xu and Yushuai Liu and Yuanmao Pu and Yongxiang Yang and Qize Zhong and Xingyan Zhao and Yang Qiu and Yuan Dong and Tao Wu and Shaonan Zheng and Ting Hu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.18717},
year = {2024}
}