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#123811 - $15.00 USD Received 11 Feb 2010; revised 29 Mar 2010; accepted 30 Mar 2010; published 31 Mar 2010
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1. Introduction
The potential for monolithically integrating photonic components with complementary-metaloxide-semiconductor (CMOS) microelectronic circuits on one platform has created significant
interest in silicon photonics [13]. This field is seen to be particularly important for the
realization of next generation inter-chip data communication through optical interconnects [4].
Many silicon based photonic components have been investigated and demonstrated, including
lasers [57], photodetectors on small [811] and large core waveguides [12,13], and
modulators [1425]. Owing to weak electro-optical effects in silicon [26], optical signal
modulation remains a very challenging task. So far, modulator devices have been fabricated
using a MOS-capacitor [14,15], carrier injection [1618], carrier depletion [1923], and the
electro-absorption (EA) effect [24,25]. Carrier injection in a silicon PIN diode can induce a
larger index change and is known to be more efficient than carrier depletion in a silicon PN
diode. However, the speed of a carrier injection device is limited by the carrier lifetime in the
junction and the speed reported so far is limited to a few gigahertz unless complicated driving
circuits are employed [1618].
Exploitation of carrier depletion, on the other hand, can lead to much faster devices. Early
work on high speed depletion modulators is reported in references [19] and [27,28]. Since
then, multiple groups have attempted to demonstrate high speed operation. Recently, a
compact microring based depletion modulator that can operate at 11GHz with ultralow power
consumption was demonstrated [23]. Ring-based devices, however, have to operate over a
very narrow bandwidth (typically ~0.1nm), or be precisely temperature tuned. In addition to
being restricted to a narrow wavelength range, ring-based devices operate over a restricted
electronic bandwidth [29]. Mach-Zehnder devices, on the other hand, offer broader-band
operation. Using vertical [19] and lateral [21] PN junctions, around 20GHz modulation speed
has been reported. However, these demonstrations were carried out on rather short devices
(~1mm length or shorter), leading to low modulation depth..To overcome these issues, the
#123811 - $15.00 USD Received 11 Feb 2010; revised 29 Mar 2010; accepted 30 Mar 2010; published 31 Mar 2010
(a)
Si
(b)
Metal
Metal
n doping
p doping
p+
doping
n+ doping
Offset
BOX
Center
Si
Waveguide
Fig. 1. (a) Schematic view of the phase shifter section of the MZI based depletion modulator.
The dashed line indicates the center of the waveguide. (b) Scanning electron microscope
(SEM) image of the fabricated phase shifter cross section.
the depletion region. Further, the index change n is related to the doping concentration N d
[26]. Using these relations, it is straightforward to show that the modulation efficiency of the
MZI modulator can be improved by: 1) using a small waveguide (larger ), 2) applying high
doping concentration (larger n), and 3) optimizing the PN junction position (larger ). The
device reported here has utilized all three techniques to make highly efficient modulation
possible.
First of all, we choose to use a small waveguide to achieve large . The device reported
here is fabricated on a 0.25m thick SOI waveguide with a width of 0.5m. The substrate was
an SOI wafer with a 3m thick buried oxide layer. The waveguide was formed by etching
0.2m of silicon. An approximately 50nm thick silicon slab was left intentionally to create an
electrical path for contact purposes. Figure 1(b) shows a scanning electron microscope (SEM)
cross-sectional view of the fabricated phase shifter. It illustrates how compact the waveguide
is compared to the other feature sizes of the device.
Further improvements were carried out by optimizing the PN junction. From the freecarrier plasma effect relation given in [26], it is known that the silicon refractive index change
#123811 - $15.00 USD Received 11 Feb 2010; revised 29 Mar 2010; accepted 30 Mar 2010; published 31 Mar 2010
2.0
(a)
-5
1.5
Phase Shift ()
Response (dB)
L=1mm
L=5mm
(b)
-10
Vb=0V
Vb=-4V
-15
1.0
0.5
Vb=-8V
Fitted
-20
1540
1545
1550
1555 1560
Wavelength (nm)
1565
1570
0.0
3
4
5
Bias Voltage (V)
Fig. 2. (a) Normalized response of a MZI modulator with 1mm long phase shifter for various
bias voltages. (b) The phase shift of the phase shifter versus the bias voltage for different phase
shifter lengths.
3. Device performance
The modulation efficiency of the MZI-based modulator is determined by the efficiency of the
PN junction phase shifter. The phase shifter efficiency was measured for a set of devices with
various phase shifter lengths. The results are shown in Fig. 2. In Fig. 2(a), the normalized
response of a MZI modulator with 1mm long phase shifter for various bias voltages is
illustrated. The device response is normalized to the response of a reference passive
waveguide with the same length but without phase shifter. As shown in the figure, the device
exhibits ~2.5dB excess loss relative to the reference passive waveguide. This includes ~1.9dB
excess loss due to the doping (1mm long phase shifter at about 19dB/cm absorption loss), and
~0.6dB loss from the splitter and combiner.
The output response is then fitted using the MZI response function and the curves are
shown in the figure (blue lines). The relative phase shift induced by the applied bias voltage is
estimated from the fitting data using the equation = 2/FSR, where is the
wavelength shift due to the applied voltage and FSR is the free spectrum range which is
mainly determined by the MZI path length difference between two arms. We also measured
devices fabricated at the same time with different phase shifter lengths. The phase shift versus
#123811 - $15.00 USD Received 11 Feb 2010; revised 29 Mar 2010; accepted 30 Mar 2010; published 31 Mar 2010
the bias voltage for various device lengths is illustrated in Fig. 2(b). As shown in this figure, a
phase shift can be achieved with merely 2.6V reverse bias for a 5mm long device (VL =
1.3V-cm). On the other hand, shorter devices require higher bias voltages. For a 1mm long
device, with 6V reverse bias, the achievable phase shift was measured to be 0.42 (VL =
1.4V-cm), which is able to provide more than 4dB ER. As a comparison, with the same bias
voltage the device with the same phase shifter length presented in [19] has obtained 0.1
phase shift, which is almost 4 times smaller. Significantly, the voltage-length product VL of
these devices has reached the 1.3-1.4V-cm level, which is so far the lowest value reported for
a silicon lateral PN depletion modulator. Further increasing the bias voltage can realize bigger
phase shift, with smaller phase shift per voltage change. For instance, the device can realize
0.5 phase shift with 8V bias voltage as shown in Fig. 2 (b), which can provide 6dB ER.
It is worth mentioning that the VL value is not the only figure-of-merit. Device
performance is also related to the loss per unit length of the phase shifter. With higher-doping
concentration, it is easy to achieve a relatively low VL value. For example, a 2V-cm VL
value has been reported in [22] with much higher doping concentrations (1x1018 cm3 pdoping and 5x1018 cm3 n-doping). The estimated phase shifter loss of that device can be
>60dB/cm. In our case, the device we reported here is much more efficient. We achieved
1.4V-cm VL value with 19dB/cm phase shifter loss. Nevertheless, 1.4V-cm VL value is
certainly not the limit of the PN depletion based modulators. By optimizing the overlapping of
the depletion region and the optical mode, 0.5V-cm VL value may be achieved according to
our simulation. With the improved VL value, it is possible to reduce the total driving voltage
of the device to be compatible to high-speed CMOS electronic devices (1-2V). Increasing the
phase shifter length can also lead to the reduction of the driving voltage. However, a careful
design of travelling-wave transmission line is necessary to achieve high-speed operation [28].
The high speed performance of the reported lateral PN depletion modulator was
demonstrated by measuring the 3dB bandwidth and eye-diagrams at high transmission rate.
The 3dB bandwidth measurements were carried out by using an Agilent vector network
analyzer. The high-speed signal and DC bias voltage were applied to the modulator device
through a bias-tee and a high-speed probe. The output modulated light signal was first
amplified using an erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) then directly fed into the network
analyzer. The system was calibrated in advance to factor out the effect of the RF system,
including the cable, modulator driver, and the bias-tee. The frequency responses of the
modulator devices with 0.25mm and 1mm long phase shifter lengths are shown in Fig. 3(a).
The results reveal the devices are capable of achieving 3dB optical bandwidth of 12GHz and
30GHz for 1mm and 0.25mm long devices, respectively.
The eye-diagram measurement used a similar experimental set up. A pseudorandom
binary sequence (PRBS) signal with (223-1) pattern length at a 12.5Gb/s transmission rate was
used. The PRBS signal was amplified by a commercial modulator driver with ~6Vpp. The
signal was combined with 3V DC bias using the bias Tee and applied to the modulator. The
modulated light signal was amplified by an EDFA and fed into a digital communication
analyzer with an optical module. A typical optical eye-diagram for a 1mm long device at
12.5Gb/s transmission rate is shown in Fig. 3 (b) for 1550nm wavelength. A clear eye opening
with >7dB ER is observed. Higher transmission rates are possible given the device 3dB
bandwidth of 12GHz, which suggests that it can be operated at > 15Gb/s. However, 12.5Gb/s
is the maximum capability of the pattern generator available to us. Nevertheless, the 3dB rolloff and eye-diagram measurements at various wavelengths confirm that the reported 1mm
long device is capable of operating at 12GHz over a wide wavelength range.
#123811 - $15.00 USD Received 11 Feb 2010; revised 29 Mar 2010; accepted 30 Mar 2010; published 31 Mar 2010
(a)
(b
L=1mm
L=0.25mm
-2
-4
12GHz
30GHz
-6
-8
1E8
1E9
1E10
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 3. (a) Frequency responses of the MZI modulators with 0.25mm and 1mm long phase
shifters, respectively, and (b) optical eye-diagram of the modulator device with 1mm long
phase shifter at wavelength 1550nm. The data transmission rate is 12.5Gb/s.
4. Conclusions
The authors acknowledge funding of this work by DARPA MTO office under the UNIC
program supervised by Jagdeep Shah (contract agreement with SUN Microsystems HR001108-9-0001). The authors greatly acknowledge Dr. C. C. Kung, Dr. Joan Fong, and Dr. Wei
Qian from Kotura Inc. for their work in fabricating of the device, and Dr. Jonathan Luff from
Kotura Inc., Dr. Xuezhe Zheng and Dr. Kannan Raj from Sun Labs, Oracle, for helpful
discussions.
The views, opinions, and/or findings contained in this article/presentation are those of the
author/presenter and should not be interpreted as representing the official views or policies,
either expressed or implied, of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or the
Department of Defense. The paper is approved for public release, distribution unlimited.
#123811 - $15.00 USD Received 11 Feb 2010; revised 29 Mar 2010; accepted 30 Mar 2010; published 31 Mar 2010