Data interconnects are on the verge of a revolution. Electrical links are increasingly being pushed to their limits with the ever increasing demand for bandwidth. Data transmission in the optical domain is a leading candidate to satisfy this need. The optical modulator is key to most applications and increasing the data rate at which it operates is important for reducing power consumption, increasing channel bandwidth limitations and improving the efficiency of infrastructure usage. In this work silicon based devices of lengths 3.5mm and 1mm operating at 40Gbit/s are demonstrated with extinction ratios of up to 10dB and 3.5dB respectively. The efficiency and optical loss of the phase shifter is 2.7V.cm and 4dB/mm (or 4.5dB/mm including waveguide loss) respectively. ©2011 Optical Society of America

Coupling plasmonics and silicon photonics is the best way to bridge the size gap between macroscopic optics and nanodevices in general and especially nanoelectronic devices. We report on the realization of key blocks for future plasmonic planar integrated optics, nano-optical couplers, and nanoslot waveguides that are compatible both with the silicon photonics and the CMOS microelectronics. Copper-based devices provide for very efficient optical coupling, unexpectedly low propagation losses and a broadband sub-50 nm optical confinement. The fabrication in a standard frontline microelectronic facilities hints broad possibilities of hybrid opto-electronic very large scale integration.