Low-power electro-optical switch based on a III-V microdisk cavity on a silicon-on-insulator circuit

We introduce a compact, low-power electro-optical switch on a silicon-on-insulator circuit through heterogeneous integration. A 10µm diameter III-V microdisk cavity is employed as the switching element. Switching of a 10Gbps optical signal is demonstrated by sweeping the bias between −1.1V and +0.9V with 15dB extinction ratio and 1.2ns switching speed.