High speed GeSi electro-absorption modulator at 1550 nm wavelength on SOI waveguide

We demonstrate a high speed GeSi electro-absorption (EA) modulator monolithically integrated on 3 µm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide. The demonstrated device has a compact active region of 1.0 × 55 μm(2), an insertion loss of 5 dB and an extinction ratio of 6 dB at wavelength of 1550 nm. The modulator has a broad operating wavelength range of 35 nm and a 3 dB bandwidth of 40.7 GHz at 2.8 V reverse bias. This compact and energy efficient modulator is a key building block for optical interconnection applications.