Maximally confined silicon microphotonic modulators and switches

We demonstrate a 4 mum silicon microdisk modulator with a reverse-biased, vertical p-n junction. The modulator demonstrates a power consumption of 85 fJ/bit at a data rate of 10 Gb/s, 3.5 V drive, BER<10^-12, and without signal pre-emphasis. High-speed silicon bandpass switches are constructed from pairs of modulators.