High-Bandwidth Lumped Mach-Zehnder Modulators Based on Thin-Film Lithium Niobate
Recently, lumped Mach-Zehnder Modulators (MZMs) have received renewed attention due to their potential for low power consumption and compact size. However, the practicality of lumped MZMs with conventional lumped electrodes (C−LEs) is limited by their lower electro−optical (EO) bandwidth. The reduct...
Gespeichert in:
Veröffentlicht in: | Photonics 2024-05, Vol.11 (5), p.399 |
---|---|
Hauptverfasser: | , , , , , , |
Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
Schlagworte: | |
Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
Tags: |
Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
|
Zusammenfassung: | Recently, lumped Mach-Zehnder Modulators (MZMs) have received renewed attention due to their potential for low power consumption and compact size. However, the practicality of lumped MZMs with conventional lumped electrodes (C−LEs) is limited by their lower electro−optical (EO) bandwidth. The reduction in EO bandwidth results from the inherent trade−off between EO bandwidth and half−wave voltage length product (VπL) within the C−LE architecture. This paper proposes a thin−film lithium niobate (TFLN)−based lumped MZM with capacitively−loaded lumped electrodes (CL−LEs). The purely linear EO effect of the LN eliminates the parasitic capacitance in the doped PN junction and enhances the EO bandwidth. Furthermore, the CL−LE structure can break the limitation between EO bandwidth and VπL inherent in the C−LE design. Simulations show the proposed device achieves a high EO bandwidth of 32.4 GHz and a low VπL of 1.15 V·cm. Due to the reduced capacitance and lower VπL, the power consumption of the device is as low as 0.1 pJ/bit. Simulation results indicate that the open−eye diagrams are achieved at 64 Gb/s for 1.5 mm TFLN lumped MZM, with an ER of 2.97 dB. Consequently, the proposed device architecture substantially enhances the performance of lumped MZMs, showing promise for application in short−reach optical interconnects within data centers. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 2304-6732 2304-6732 |
DOI: | 10.3390/photonics11050399 |