Analytical Model and Fringing-Field Parasitics of Carrier-Depletion Silicon-on-Insulator Optical Modulation Diodes

We derive an analytical model for the depletion capacitance of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) optical modulation diodes. This model accurately describes the parasitic fringe capacitances due to a lateral pn junction and can be extended to other geometries, such as vertical and interdigitated junctions. The model is used to identify the waveguide slab to rib height ratio as a key geometric scaling parameter for the modulation efficiency and bandwidth for lateral diodes. The fringe capacitance is a parasitic effect that leads to a decrease of about 20% in the modulation bandwidth of typical SOI diodes without a corresponding increase in the modulation efficiency. From the scaling relations, the most effective way to increase the modulation bandwidth is to reduce the series resistance of the diode.