Compact thermo-optic modulator based on a titanium dioxide micro-ring resonator

Abstract

Thermo-optic (TO) modulators with the ability of working from the visible to the infrared spectrum are promising for many emerging applications. However, current technologies suffer from either a limited operating spectrum range or weak TO effect. In this work, we present an effective TO modulator based on a titanium dioxide TiO2 micro-ring resonator with solgel SiO2 as the cladding. Taking advantage of the large negative TO coefficients of TiO2 and solgel SiO2, the fabricated device demonstrates a temperature-dependent wavelength shift of 58.3 pm/°C and a π-shift power consumption of 7.8 mW. Since both TiO2 and solgel SiO2 have a broad transmission window, the demonstrated device will have wide applications in integrated optics from the visible to the infrared wavelength range.