High-Speed and Power Efficient Integrated Electro-Optic Modulators
type: CreativeWork
description: Communication networks worldwide are experiencing exponential growth in data traffic. The foundation of international communication is currently provided by fiber-optic communication networks,which manage more than half of the internet traffic. Increasing the capacity as well as reducing the energy consumption of the optical communication links is essential to meet the current demands. An electro-optic (EO) modulator, which translates the digital bit stream into an optical signal, is one of the essential components that determines the data rate of a fiber-optic link. The deployment of thousands of externally modulated laser links in a data center requires EO modulators with low energy consumption and small footprints, which enable high-density integration at a low cost. The standard silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform and the more recently developed lithium niobate-oninsulator (LNOI) platform are the foundations of photonic integrated circuits (PIC), which have emerged as a promising technology to meet the needs of the optical communication industry. While effective optical modulators have been shown on both platforms, higher-speed and more compact devices are required to keep up with the increasing demand of internet traffic. Therefore, to enhance the bandwidth and to reduce the power consumption I demonstrated two SOI platform-based device architectures in this thesis: one based on the Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) silicon modulator to enhance the bandwidth and the other on the microring resonator (MRR) silicon modulator to support higher order modulation formats. In addition to that, I also present a modulator with new device concept based on the LNOI platform which lowers the voltage needed to drive the state-of-the-art thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) modulators. I initially presented the silicon dioxide cladding capacitively coupled silicon (CC-Si) modulator in Chapter 2. I reported our observation of plasma dispersion effects for the first time in silicon…
abstract: Communication networks worldwide are experiencing exponential growth in data traffic. The foundation of international communication is currently provided by fiber-optic communication networks,which manage more than half of the internet traffic. Increasing the capacity as well as reducing the energy consumption of the optical communication links is essential to meet the current demands. An electro-optic (EO) modulator, which translates the digital bit stream into an optical signal, is one of the essential components that determines the data rate of a fiber-optic link. The deployment of thousands of externally modulated laser links in a data center requires EO modulators with low energy consumption and small footprints, which enable high-density integration at a low cost. The standard silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform and the more recently developed lithium niobate-oninsulator (LNOI) platform are the foundations of photonic integrated circuits (PIC), which have emerged as a promising technology to meet the needs of the optical communication industry. While effective optical modulators have been shown on both platforms, higher-speed and more compact devices are required to keep up with the increasing demand of internet traffic. Therefore, to enhance the bandwidth and to reduce the power consumption I demonstrated two SOI platform-based device architectures in this thesis: one based on the Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) silicon modulator to enhance the bandwidth and the other on the microring resonator (MRR) silicon modulator to support higher order modulation formats. In addition to that, I also present a modulator with new device concept based on the LNOI platform which lowers the voltage needed to drive the state-of-the-art thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) modulators. I initially presented the silicon dioxide cladding capacitively coupled silicon (CC-Si) modulator in Chapter 2. I reported our observation of plasma dispersion effects for the first time in silicon…
author: Alam, Ahmed Shariful
keywords: Bandwidth Enhancement, Capacitive Coupling, Lithium Niobate Modulator, Phase Shifter, Ring Resonator, Silicon Modulator
date published: 2025-06
date modified: 2026-07-27T21:28:05Z
provider: University of Toronto
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Toronto

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/1807/144715