Electrically driven CMOS CompatibleVO2-based silicon modulator

A CMOS compatible, compact electroabsorption modulator is presented by inserting a VO
₂
insulator-metal phase transition material on a standard silicon waveguide forming Si/VO
₂
/Si waveguide. The absorption coefficient of the Si/VO
₂
/Si waveguide intensely depends on the phase of the VO
₂
slot layer. By electrically changing the phase of VO
₂
from insulating to metallic, the optical mode is suppressed due to very high loss of metaling-phase of VO
₂
suggesting an excellent candidate for electroabsorption silicon modulator. The significant 15 dB modulation depth with insertion loss of 2 dB at a drive voltage of 3.25 V is theoretically achieved for TE mode, with assumption of 50 nm VO
₂
slot width along only 1 μm lenght. Also energy consumption is only 60 fJ/bit. Even higher modulation depth per length is reachable by increasing the width of VO
₂
slot layer in cost of higher drive voltage and energy consumption. A lower performance for TM polarization can be achieved.