Bias-drift-free Mach–Zehnder modulators based on a heterogeneous silicon and lithium niobate platform
Shihao Sun, Mingbo He, Mengyue Xu, Shengqian Gao, Ziyan Chen, Xian Zhang, Ziliang Ruan, Wu Xiong, Lidan Zhou, Lin Liu, Chao Lü, Changjian Guo, Liu Liu, Siyuan Yu, Xinlun Cai
Abstract
Optical modulators have been and will continue to be essential devices for energy- and cost-efficient optical communication networks. Heterogeneous silicon and lithium niobate modulators have demonstrated promising performances of low optical loss, low drive voltage, and large modulation bandwidth. However, DC bias drift is a major drawback of optical modulators using lithium niobate as the active electro-optic material. Here, we demonstrate high-speed and bias-drift-free Mach–Zehnder modulators based on the heterogeneous silicon and lithium niobate platform. The devices combine stable thermo-optic DC biases in silicon and ultra-fast electro-optic modulation in lithium niobate, and exhibit a low insertion loss of 1.8 dB, a low half-wave voltage of 3 V, an electro-optic modulation bandwidth of at least 70 GHz, and modulation data rates up to 128 Gb/s.