Modulators based on free-carrier plasma dispersion effect has attracted a lot of attention in the recent years. Particularly, a lot of effort is dedicated nowadays into optimizing carrier accumulation silicon modulators. In this work a novel structure of carrier accumulation modulator is proposed and analyzed. The structure is based on interleaved capacitors in a periodic segmented waveguide such as SubWavelength Gratings (SWG) waveguides. This new structure overcomes the major limitation of carrier accumulation structures, which is the limited overlap of the optical mode with the region where the carrier accumulation takes place. The analysis of this novel structure is presented in detail from the optical and the electrical point of view. Furthermore, the procedure to analyze and extract the modulator performance is also presented. Values of modulation efficiency and loss below 0.5Vcm and 5 dB respectively were obtained for the proposed modulator.

Date Published: 13 May 2016
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 9891, Silicon Photonics and Photonic Integrated Circuits V, 989112 (13 May 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2228843

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9891:
Silicon Photonics and Photonic Integrated Circuits V
Laurent Vivien; Lorenzo Pavesi; Stefano Pelli, Editor(s)