Abstract

We report a Germanium (Ge) waveguide electro-absorption modulator with electro-optic bandwidth substantially beyond 50GHz. The device is implemented in a fully integrated Si photonics platform on 200mm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers with 220nm top Si thickness. Wide open eye diagrams are demonstrated at 1610nm operation wavelength for non-return-to-zero on-off keying (NRZ-OOK) modulation at data rates as high as 56Gb/s. Dynamic extinction ratios up to 3.29dB are obtained by applying drive voltages of 2V peak-to-peak, along with an optical insertion loss below 5.5dB. The device has a low junction capacitance of just 12.8fF, resulting in 12.8fJ/bit of dynamic and ~1.2mW of static power consumption in typical operating conditions. Wafer-scale performance data are presented and confirm the manufacturability of the device. The demonstrated modulator shows great potential for realizing high-density and low-power silicon photonic transceivers targeting short-reach optical interconnects at serial data rates of 56Gb/s and beyond.

Related Research Topics

• Ge(Si) Electro-Absorption Modulators on Si