Silicon modulators with optimized vertical PN junctions for high-modulation-efficiency and low-loss in the O-band

Thomas Y. L. Ang; Ching Eng Png; Soon Thor Lim; Jun Rong Ong

doi:10.1117/12.2290385

27 February 2018 Silicon modulators with optimized vertical PN junctions for high-modulation-efficiency and low-loss in the O-band

Thomas Y. L. Ang, Ching Eng Png, Soon Thor Lim, Jun Rong Ong

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10537, Silicon Photonics XIII; 105370H (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2290385
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2018, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Silicon modulators based on the carrier depletion mechanism are extensively used in recent years for high-speed data transmission. Lateral PN junctions are the most common electro-optical phase shifters for silicon Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs) due to its ease of fabrication. They have a relatively high DC V_πL_π of around 2.5 V.cm in the Oband. An alternative approach is to design and optimize vertical PN junctions for lower DC V_πL_π, which is currently lacking in the literature for silicon MZMs that operates using carrier depletion mechanism in the O-band. In this work, we look into the design and optimization of silicon phase shifters based on vertical PN junctions for high-modulationefficiency with V_πL_π ≤ 1 V.cm, while meeting the stringent low loss budget of ≤ ∼1 dB/mm for data communication in the O-band. This is achieved by varying the offsets of the vertical PN junction with respect to different doping concentrations (2e¹⁷/cm³ – 3e¹⁸/cm³ ) near the depletion region. Different types of doping schemes are explored and optimized. Our optimized vertical PN junction designs are predicted to give low DC V_πL_π of 0.26–0.5 V.cm for low DC reverse bias of ≥ –2V and low propagation loss of ≤ ∼1dB/mm, resulting in α.V_πL_π = 1.7 for the best designs, which to the best of our knowledge, is the lowest α.V_πL_π at the O-band to date. Electrical and optical modeling are based on our in-house proprietary software that is able to perform both optical and electrical simulations without loss of data fidelity.

Citation Download Citation

Thomas Y. L. Ang, Ching Eng Png, Soon Thor Lim, and Jun Rong Ong "Silicon modulators with optimized vertical PN junctions for high-modulation-efficiency and low-loss in the O-band", Proc. SPIE 10537, Silicon Photonics XIII, 105370H (27 February 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2290385

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