High data rate simulation of phase shifters in silicon-on-insulator

We report a methodology to study low-loss high-speed traveling-wave silicon Mach-Zehnder modulator with reduced series resistance. The methodology constitutes electrical parameters including, but not limited to, capacitance, conductance and transitioning times to model time response and effective complex refractive index from optical simulations of phase shifter arms and in turn model the phase change and resultant loss induced by each arm. Furthermore, our methodology incorporates microwave impedance and propagation loss under reverse bias characterized by S-parameter measurements. Our high-speed optical performances are simulated and benchmarked against experimental data based on eye-diagram measurements in on-off keying at 10Gbps, showing excellent agreement. This methodology provides best-in-class accuracy and are suitable when operating speeds are scaled to 50Gbps.