Ultrafast all-optical modulator with femtojoule absorbed switching energy in silicon-on-insulator

Schönenberger, Sophie; Stöferle, Thilo; Moll, Nikolaj; Mahrt, Rainer F.; Dahlem, Marcus S.; Wahlbrink, T.; Bolten, Jens; Mollenhauer, T.; Kurz, H.; Offrein, Bert Jan

doi:10.1364/oe.18.022485

Cited by 32 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Nevertheless, due to the industrially increasing interest in optics communication the field of all-optical modulation is becoming more and more popular [3][4][5][6][7]. The most important restriction in designing the all-optical modulator is the desire to realize it on Silicon (Si) in order to allow its integration with microelectronic circuitry.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They used Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) ring resonator and in order to get the optical effect they shone with pump power of 25 pJ. Schönenberger et al [5] demonstrated SOIs devices which have reached power requirements of 6 fJ for 3 dB modulation depth with a switch-on time of few picoseconds and recovery time limited by the free charge carriers (FCC) life time being 500 ps. It should be noted that similar works were also done with different materials such as the CMOS compatible amorphous silicon [11][12][13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Experimental characterization towards an in-fibre integrated silicon slab based all-optical modulator

Pinhas

Danan

Sinvani

et al. 2017

J. Eur. Opt. Soc.-Rapid Publ.

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Background: Due to the industrially increasing interest in optics communication the field of all-optical modulation is becoming more and more popular. However, no in-fibre integrated miniaturized devices which provide current solutions were suggested as all-optical modulators with sufficient modulation depth and with low power consumption. Methods: In this paper, an all-optical silicon modulator with improved modulation depth is presented. The modulator will be developed as an in-fibre device for optics communication applications. The modulator is a silicon slab, 50 and 470 μm thick which is coated on both sides to get an improved Fabry-Perot resonator for laser beam at wavelength of 1550 nm. The modulator operation is based on the plasma dispersion effect which is induced by a pulsed visible laser beam acting as the pump for the creation of free charge carriers. Results: We have proved the coating withstands high energy fluency of the laser pulse. The different recombination and heat processes are examined. Our silicon based Fabry-Perot resonator increases the intrinsic c-Si finesse to 30. The improved finesse is shown to have significant effect on the modulation depth up to 12 dB. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge this is the first experimental feasibility study of an all-optical modulator with sufficient modulation depth and with low power consumption which is also an in-fibre integrated miniaturized device based upon Si slab. Extensive experimental and numerical studies presented in this paper examine the influence of thermal effects and the sample parameters on the response time and on the modulation depth and the power consumption of the in-fibre integrated device. Apart from being a modulator, the proposed device can also act as tunable spectral filter.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental characterization towards an in-fibre integrated silicon slab based all-optical modulator

Pinhas

Danan

Sinvani

et al. 2017

J. Eur. Opt. Soc.-Rapid Publ.

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“…In this device decreasing its size reduces the power requirement without increasing the Q factor of the device and managed to reduce its modal volume to 6 µm. Ultrafast silicon on insulator (SOI) all optical modulators which require only 6 fJ and operate with response rate of only few ps [8] have also been recently suggested. Reed provided a short review of some prominent silicon based modulators [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

All-optical silicon simplified passive modulation

Aharoni¹,

Baharav²,

Bidani³

et al. 2012

J. Eur. Opt. Soc.-Rapid Publ.

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In this paper we present an all-optical silicon based modulator suggested also for high power operation and for pulse picker application being used as part of fiber lasers system. The paper theoretically and experimentally investigates several new and important insights involving the dependence of the relative transmission on the pump pulse energy for different finesse values of the constructed cavity as well as the dependence of the response rate of the device to the pump wavelength due to coexistence of two physical recombination processes: fast surface effect and slow bulk recombination. To adapt the constructed silicon based cavity to be used in lasers applications, we aligned the pump and the signal beams to co-propagate through the device while the usage of a cavity allowed a low power pump to yield a significant extinction ratio at the output of the device.

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“…However, there is another technique to modulate light beam through the use of another beam in lieu of the aforementioned way. This technique is called all optical modulation (AOM) [2], [3]. A basic material for already existing electronic circuits which can be the perfect candidate for this process as part of an integrated information transferring device is the Silicon (Si).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

All optical modulator based on silicon resonator

et al. 2015

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In this paper we present an all-optical silicon modulator, where a silicon slab (450 µm) thick is coated on both sides to get a Fabry-Perot resonator for laser beam at wavelength of 1550nm. Most of the modulators discussed in literature, are driven by electrical field rather than by light. We investigate new approaches regarding the dependence of the absorption of the optical signal on the control laser pulse at 532 nm having 5nm pulse width. Our silicon based Fabry-Perot resonator increases the intrinsic c-Si finesse to >10, instead of the uncoated silicon with natural finesse of 2.5. The improved finesse is shown to have significant effect on the modulation depth using a pulsed laser. A modulation of 12dB was attained. The modulation is ascribed to two different effects -The Plasma Dispersion Effect (PDE) and the ThermoOptic Effect (TOE). The PDE causes increase in the signal absorption in silicon via the absorption of the control laser light. On top of that, the transmission of the signal can decrease dramatically in high finesse resonators due to change in the refractive index due to TOE. The changes in the signal's absorption coefficient and in the refractive index are the result of incremental change in the concentration of free carriers. The TOE gives rise to higher refractive index as opposed to the PDE which triggers a decrease in the refractive index. Finally, tradeoff considerations are presented on how to modify one effect to counter the other one, leading to an optimal device having reduced temperature dependence.

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Ultrafast all-optical modulator with femtojoule absorbed switching energy in silicon-on-insulator

Cited by 32 publications

References 30 publications

Experimental characterization towards an in-fibre integrated silicon slab based all-optical modulator

Experimental characterization towards an in-fibre integrated silicon slab based all-optical modulator

All-optical silicon simplified passive modulation

All optical modulator based on silicon resonator

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