Breaking the Energy-Bandwidth Limit of Electrooptic Modulators: Theory and a Device Proposal

Author

Hongtao Lin ; Ogbuu, Okechukwu ; Jifeng Liu ; Lin Zhang ; Michel, J. ; Juejun Hu

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mater. Sci. & Eng., Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

Volume

31

Issue

24

fYear

2013

fDate

Dec.15, 2013

Firstpage

4029

Lastpage

4036

Abstract

In this paper, we quantitatively analyzed the tradeoff between energy per bit for switching and modulation bandwidth of classical electrooptic modulators. A formally simple energy-bandwidth limit (10) is derived for electrooptic modulators based on intracavity index modulation. To overcome this limit, we propose a dual cavity modulator device which uses a coupling modulation scheme operating at high bandwidth (>200 GHz) not limited by cavity photon lifetime and simultaneously features an ultralow switching energy of 0.26 aJ, representing over three orders of magnitude energy consumption reduction compared to state-of-the-art electrooptic modulators.

Keywords

electro-optical modulation; electro-optical switches; cavity photon lifetime; coupling modulation method; device proposal; dual cavity modulator device; electrooptic modulator; energy bandwidth limit; intracavity index modulation; modulation bandwidth; Cavity resonators; Couplings; Electrooptic modulators; Electrooptical waveguides; Optical switches; Electrooptic modulators; optical resonators; optical switches; photonic crystals;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2013.2280820

Filename

6589977