High-speed silicon electro-optic modulator for electronic photonic integrated circuits

The development of future electronic-photonic integrated circuits (EPIC) based on silicon technology critically depends on the availability of CMOS-compatible high-speed modulators that enable the interaction of electronic and optical signals. This thesis investigates electrically driven Mach-Zehnder modulators based on high-index contrast silicon waveguide technology and electronic carrier injection. Modulators based on four different structures are investigated: the forward-biased PiN diode with and without lifetime reduction, the reverse-biased PIN/PN diode and a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structure. These devices are compared with each other in terms of achievable performance. A modulator based on the forward-biased PIN diode with lifetime reduction is designed to reach 34GHz bandwidth and a low figure of merit V -. L = 0.6V - cm using a carrier lifetime reduction and a graded doping profile. A bandwidth of 1-2GHz has been demonstrated so far which is considerably smaller than the design bandwidth due to high series resistance. Modulators based on the forward-biased PIN structure without lifetime reduction have a low figure of merit, very low voltage and extremely low power consumption in the low frequency regime.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Gan, Fuwan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Franz X. Kärtner.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/40498

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/40498