Plasmonic IQ modulators with attojoule per bit electrical energy consumption

Wolfgang Heni (), Yuriy Fedoryshyn, Benedikt Baeuerle, Arne Josten, Claudia B. Hoessbacher, Andreas Messner, Christian Haffner, Tatsuhiko Watanabe, Yannick Salamin, Ueli Koch, Delwin L. Elder, Larry R. Dalton and Juerg Leuthold ()
Additional contact information
Wolfgang Heni: ETH Zurich
Yuriy Fedoryshyn: ETH Zurich
Benedikt Baeuerle: ETH Zurich
Arne Josten: ETH Zurich
Claudia B. Hoessbacher: ETH Zurich
Andreas Messner: ETH Zurich
Christian Haffner: ETH Zurich
Tatsuhiko Watanabe: ETH Zurich
Yannick Salamin: ETH Zurich
Ueli Koch: ETH Zurich
Delwin L. Elder: University of Washington
Larry R. Dalton: University of Washington
Juerg Leuthold: ETH Zurich

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Coherent optical communications provides the largest data transmission capacity with the highest spectral efficiency and therefore has a remarkable potential to satisfy today’s ever-growing bandwidth demands. It relies on so-called in-phase/quadrature (IQ) electro-optic modulators that encode information on both the amplitude and the phase of light. Ideally, such IQ modulators should offer energy-efficient operation and a most compact footprint, which would allow high-density integration and high spatial parallelism. Here, we present compact IQ modulators with an active section occupying a footprint of 4 × 25 µm × 3 µm, fabricated on the silicon platform and operated with sub-1-V driving electronics. The devices exhibit low electrical energy consumptions of only 0.07 fJ bit−1 at 50 Gbit s−1, 0.3 fJ bit−1 at 200 Gbit s−1, and 2 fJ bit−1 at 400 Gbit s−1. Such IQ modulators may pave the way for application of IQ modulators in long-haul and short-haul communications alike.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09724-7

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