Coherent modulation up to 100 GBd 16QAM using silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) devices

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) IQ modulators capable of generating 100 GBd 16QAM signals, achieving high data rates with low voltage and energy consumption, marking a significant advancement in integrated optical modulation.

Contribution

First demonstration of 100 GBd 16QAM modulation using SOH devices on a semiconductor substrate, combining high speed with low power consumption.

Findings

Achieved 100 GBd 16QAM modulation with SOH IQ modulators.

Generated a single-polarization line rate of 400 Gbit/s.

Electrical energy dissipation of 25 fJ/bit.

Abstract

We demonstrate the generation of higher-order modulation formats using silicon-based inphase/quadrature (IQ) modulators at symbol rates of up to 100 GBd. Our devices exploit the advantages of silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) integration, which combines silicon-on-insulator waveguides with highly efficient organic electro-optic (EO) cladding materials to enable small drive voltages and sub-millimeter device lengths. In our experiments, we use an SOH IQ modulator with a {\pi}-voltage of 1.6 V to generate 100 GBd 16QAM signals. This is the first time that the 100 GBd mark is reached with an IQ modulator realized on a semiconductor substrate, leading to a single-polarization line rate of 400 Gbit/s. The peak-to-peak drive voltages amount to 1.5 Vpp, corresponding to an electrical energy dissipation in the modulator of only 25 fJ/bit.