Coupling-enhanced Dual ITO Layer Electro-absorption Modulator in Silicon Photonics
Abstract
Electro-optic signal modulation provides a key functionality in modern technology and information networks. Photonic integration has enabled not only miniaturizing photonic components, but also provided performance improvements due to co-design addressing both electrical and optical device rules. However, the millimeter-to-centimeter large footprint of many foundry-ready photonic electro-optic modulators significantly limits on-chip scaling density. To address these limitations, here we experimentally demonstrate a coupling-enhanced electro-absorption modulator by heterogeneously integrating a novel dual-gated indium-tin-oxide (ITO) phase-shifting tunable absorber placed at a silicon directional coupler region. Our experimental modulator shows a 2 dB extinction ratio for a just 4 um short device at 4 volt bias. Since no material nor optical resonances are deployed, this device shows spectrally broadband operation as demonstrated here across the entire C-band. In conclusion we demonstrate a modulator utilizing strong index-change from both real and imaginary part of active material enabling compact and high-performing modulators using semiconductor foundry-near materials.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1907.10756,
title = {Coupling-enhanced Dual ITO Layer Electro-absorption Modulator in Silicon Photonics},
author = {Mohammad H. Tahersima and Zhizhen Ma and Yaliang Gui and Shuai Sun and Hao Wang and Rubab Amin and Hamed Dalir and Ray Chen and Mario Miscuglio and Volker J. Sorger},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.10756},
year = {2019}
}