Opto controlled substrate losses in a coplanar waveguide on HR-Si

The development of opto-electronic RF switch for millimeter wave applications designed in a multilayer thin-film multichip module technology on HR-Si is discussed in this paper. Insertion loss measurements of a CPW line under illumination demonstrate a contrast of about 40 dB at 100GHz. For the interaction between RF-signal and the photo-induced conductivity, different models have been developed. A 3D model is used in EM-solvers to predict and study the impact of the photoconductivity modulation. A lumped model is developed as well to make the integration into circuit simulators.