Plasmonic Modulators in Cryogenic Environment Featuring Bandwidths in Excess of 100 GHz and Reduced Plasmonic Losses
Dominik Bisang, Yannik Horst, Maurus Thürig, Kiran Menachery, Stefan M. Koepfli, Manuel Kohli, Eva De Leo, Marcel Destraz, Valentino Tedaldi, Nino Del Medico, Claudia Hoessbacher, Benedikt Baeuerle, Wolfgang Heni, Juerg Leuthold
Abstract
Cryogenic quantum applications have a demand for an ever-higher number of interconnects and bandwidth. Photonic links are foreseen to offer data transfer with high bandwidth, low heat load, and low noise to enable the next-generation scalable quantum computing systems. However, they require high-speed and energy-efficient modulators operating at cryogenic temperatures for electro-optic signal conversion. Here, plasmonic organic electro-optic modulators operating at 4 K are demonstrated with a >100 GHz bandwidth, drive voltages as low as 96 mV, and a significant reduction in plasmonic propagation losses by over 40% compared to room temperature. Up to 160 Gbit/s and 256 Gbit/s cryogenic electro-optic signal conversion are demonstrated by performing data experiments using a plasmonic Mach-Zehnder modulator at around 1528 nm and a plasmonic ring-resonator modulator at around 1285 nm, respectively. This work shows that plasmonic modulators are ideally suited for future high-speed, scalable, and energy-efficient photonic interconnects in cryogenic environments.