Segmented silicon MZM for PAM-8 transmissions at 114 Gb/s with binary signaling

We experimentally demonstrate PAM-8 generation from binary electrical signals driving a silicon multi-electrode Mach-Zehnder modulator acting as an optical digital-to-analog converter. Measured BER in back-to-back configuration is used to evaluate signal quality. We demonstrate 38 GBd PAM-8 transmission below the forward error correction (FEC) threshold using minimum mean square error (MMSE) equalization. The results show that modulators with segmented phase shifters can be advantageously used to eliminate the need for high bandwidth electronic digital-to-analog converters in the generation of multilevel signals. These modulators, that can be designed and fabricated with standard CMOS compatible tools and processes, are of high interest for short range high-speed data links.