Ferroelectric-on-silicon modulators for high-density optical interconnects

Summary form only given. The demonstration of a reflective optical modulator that can be integrated with conventionally processed silicon wafers will be important for dense low-power optical interconnects to silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuits. Although ferroelectric-film-based optical modulators on silicon substrates were demonstrated, the early work had no active silicon devices. We have successfully fabricated reflection-mode modulators on silicon wafers with active CMOS circuitry using a recently developed low temperature technique for the growth of ferroelectric films on dielectric mirrors. The ferroelectric modulator consists of a mirror/ferroelectric/mirror thin film Fabry-Perot structure on a silicon wafer.