Slow-light silicon modulator with 110-GHz bandwidth

Abstract

Silicon modulators are key components to support the dense integration of electro-optic functional elements for various applications. Despite numerous advances in promoting the modulation speed, a bandwidth ceiling emerges in practices and becomes an obstacle toward Tbps-level throughput on a single chip. Here, we demonstrate a compact pure silicon modulator that shatters present bandwidth ceiling to 110 gigahertz. The proposed modulator is built on a cascade corrugated waveguide architecture, which gives rise to a slow-light effect. By comprehensively balancing a series of merits, the modulators can benefit from the slow light for better efficiency and compact size while remaining sufficiently high bandwidth. Consequently, we realize a 110-gigahertz modulator with 124-micrometer length, enabling 112 gigabits per second on-off keying operation. Our work proves that silicon modulators with 110 gigahertz are feasible, thus shedding light on its potentials in ultrahigh bandwidth applications such as optical interconnection and photonic machine learning.