Silicon-Organic Hybrid (SOH) Mach-Zehnder Modulators for 100 Gbit/s on-off Keying

Electro-optic modulators for high-speed on-off keying (OOK) are key components of short- and medium-reach interconnects in data-center networks. Small footprint, cost-efficient large-scale production, small drive voltages and ultra-low power consumption are of paramount importance for such devices. Here we demonstrate that the concept of silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) integration perfectly meets these challenges. The approach combines the unique processing advantages of large-scale silicon photonics with unrivalled electro-optic (EO) coefficients obtained by molecular engineering of organic materials. Our proof-of-concept experiments demonstrate generation and transmission of OOK signals at line rates of up to 100 Gbit/s using a 1.1 mm-long SOH Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) featuring a π-voltage of only 0.9 V. The experiment represents the first demonstration of 100 Gbit/s OOK on the silicon photonic platform, featuring the lowest drive voltage and energy consumption ever demonstrated for a semiconductor-based device at this data rate. We support our results by a theoretical analysis showing that the nonlinear transfer characteristic of the MZM can help to overcome bandwidth limitations of the modulator and the electric driver circuitry. We expect that high-speed, power-efficient SOH modulators may have transformative impact on short-reach networks, enabling compact transceivers with unprecedented efficiency, thus building the base of future interfaces with Tbit/s data rates.