Advances Toward Ge/SiGe Quantum-Well Waveguide Modulators at 1.3 mu m

作者：Rouifed Mohamed Said^*; Marris Morini Delphine; Chaisakul Papichaya; Frigerio Jacopo; Isella Giovanni; Chrastina Daniel; Edmond Samson; Le Roux Xavier; Coudevylle Jean Rene; Bouville David; Vivien Laurent

来源：IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 2014, 20(4): 3400207.

DOI：10.1109/JSTQE.2013.2294456

• Modulation
• quantum wells
• Ge/SiGe
• waveguide integration

The paper reports on the developments of Ge/SiGe quantum well (QW) waveguide modulators operating at 1.3 mu m. Two modulator configurations have been studied: The first one is based on QW structures grown on a 13-mu m SiGe buffer on bulk silicon. Light was directly coupled and propagated in Ge/Si0.35Ge0.65 QWs. Using a 3-mu m-wide and 50-mu m-long modulator, an extinction ratio (ER) up to 6 dB was obtained at 1.3 mu m. In the second configuration, the aim is to integrate Ge/SiGe QW on standard silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguides. A reduction of buffer thickness is then required to allow the light coupling from Si waveguide to Ge/SiGe QW. To this purpose, first we demonstrated QCSE with a thin (360-nm-thick) Si0.08Ge0.92 buffer on silicon using the well-known Ge/Si0.15Ge0.85 QWs (operated at a wavelength of 1.4 mu m). Based on these promising experimental results, we theoretically investigated properties of a Ge/Si0.65Ge0.35 QW modulator integrated on SOI waveguides. 7.7 dB ER were predicted with 4 dB optical insertion loss and an estimated energy consumption of 59 fJ/bit for a modulator length as short as 69 mu m.

• 出版日期2014-8