110 GHz, 110 mW hybrid silicon-lithium niobate Mach-Zehnder modulator
Forrest Valdez, Viphretuo Mere, Xiaoxi Wang, Nicholas Boynton, Thomas A. Friedmann, Shawn Arterburn, Christina Dallo, Andrew Pomerene, Andrew Starbuck, Douglas C. Trotter, Anthony L. Lentine, Shayan Mookherjea
Abstract
High bandwidth, low voltage electro-optic modulators with high optical power handling capability are important for improving the performance of analog optical communications and RF photonic links. Here we designed and fabricated a thin-film lithium niobate (LN) Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) which can handle high optical power of 110 mW, while having 3-dB bandwidth greater than 110 GHz at 1550 nm. The design does not require etching of thin-film LN, and uses hybrid optical modes formed by bonding LN to planarized silicon photonic waveguide circuits. A high optical power handling capability in the MZM was achieved by carefully tapering the underlying Si waveguide to reduce the impact of optically-generated carriers, while retaining a high modulation efficiency. The MZM has a [Formula: see text] product of 3.1 V.cm and an on-chip optical insertion loss of 1.8 dB.