Title :
0.2 V Drive Voltage Substrate Removed Electro-Optic Mach–Zehnder Modulators With MQW Cores at 1.55 μm
Author :
Dogru, Selim ; Dagli, Nadir
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Abstract :
Novel electro-optic modulators in compound semiconductor epilayers using substrate removal techniques are reported. Epilayer consists of a p-i-n junction in which i layer is composed of an InGaAlAs/InAlAs MQW. This creates an optical mode with very strong vertical confinement and overlapping very well with the large electric field of the reverse biased p-i-n junction. This approach combined with the large quadratic electro-optic coefficient due to MQW improves efficiency of modulation significantly. Mach-Zehnder electro-optic modulators fabricated using this approach has 0.2 V (0.6 V) Vπ for 3 (1) mm long electrodes at 1.55 μm under push pull drive corresponding to record modulation efficiency of 0.06 V·cm.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; electro-optical modulation; gallium compounds; indium compounds; optical fabrication; p-i-n diodes; semiconductor epitaxial layers; semiconductor quantum wells; InGaAlAs-InAlAs; MQW cores; compound semiconductor epilayers; electric field; electro-optic Mach-Zehnder modulators; optical mode; push pull drive; quadratic electro-optic coefficient; reverse biased p-i-n junction; substrate removal techniques; vertical confinement; vertical overlapping; voltage 0.2 V; wavelength 1.55 mum; Electrodes; Electrooptic modulators; Indexes; Optical device fabrication; Quantum well devices; Substrates; Compound semiconductor modulators; integrated optics; optical modulators;
Journal_Title :
Lightwave Technology, Journal of
DOI :
10.1109/JLT.2013.2293345
