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Simulation Study of a Monolithic III-V/Si V-Groove Carrier Depletion Optical Phase Shifter | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore

Simulation Study of a Monolithic III-V/Si V-Groove Carrier Depletion Optical Phase Shifter


Impact Statement:An optical phase shifter is an essential optical building block, i.e., in Si photonics. An OPS is used to modulate the phase and/or intensity of light, e.g., as propagate...Show More

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose a new carrier depletiontype hybrid III-V/Si optical phase shifter using a n-III-V/p-Si hetero-junction, which can be fabricated with direct epit...Show More
Impact Statement:
An optical phase shifter is an essential optical building block, i.e., in Si photonics. An OPS is used to modulate the phase and/or intensity of light, e.g., as propagated through a waveguide of the optical modulator. A typical Si-based optical modulator uses the free-carrier plasma dispersion effect to achieve the phase modulation of light by changing a carrier density in the waveguide. Efficiency of such a Si-based optical modulator is inherently limited by the effective mass and mobility of free carriers in Si since the amount of phase modulation is inversely proportional to the effective mass and the amount of intensity modulation inversely proportional to the effective mass and mobility. To use a larger free-carrier plasma dispersion effect, some efforts have been devoted to the use of III-V materials, to utilize their lower effective mass and higher carrier mobility (compared to Si-based materials).

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose a new carrier depletiontype hybrid III-V/Si optical phase shifter using a n-III-V/p-Si hetero-junction, which can be fabricated with direct epitaxial growth of III-V semiconductors on Si. We numerically analyzed the performance of the III-V/Si hybrid optical phase shifter by comparing the performance in reverse bias operation with that of pure Si or III-V p-n optical phase shifters. The hybrid III-V/Si optical phase shifter showed improved modulation efficiency and lower optical loss compared to pure Si and III-V p-n optical phase shifters, owing to the large electron-induced refractive index change of III-V compound semiconductors, while avoiding the large hole-induced optical loss of III-V compound semiconductor. The simulation study suggests the feasibility of a very low voltage-length product (Vπ L) of 0.07 V · cm, a low insertion loss (α) of 16 dB/cm, and a very low α Vπ L product close to 1 V · dB at 1.31 μ m, which is 10x lower than for Si p-n optical phase shifters.
Published in: IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics ( Volume: 56, Issue: 2, April 2020)
Article Sequence Number: 6300208
Date of Publication: 05 February 2020

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