High-Performance Hybrid Silicon and Lithium Niobate Mach-Zehnder Modulators for 100 Gbit/s and Beyond

TL;DR

This paper presents a hybrid silicon and lithium niobate Mach-Zehnder modulator achieving high speed, low loss, and linearity, suitable for next-generation optical communication systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hybrid integration platform combining silicon and lithium niobate to realize high-performance modulators with multiple optimized criteria.

Findings

Insertion loss of 2.5 dB

Electro-optic bandwidth of at least 70 GHz

Modulation rates up to 112 Gbit/s

Abstract

Optical modulators are at the heart of optical communication links. Ideally, they should feature low insertion loss, low drive voltage, large modulation bandwidth, high linearity, compact footprint and low manufacturing cost. Unfortunately, these criteria have only been achieved on separate occasions.Based on a Silicon and Lithium Niobate hybrid integration platform, we demonstrate Mach-Zehnder modulators that simultaneously fulfill these criteria. The presented device exhibits an insertion loss of 2.5 dB, voltage-length product of 2.2 Vcm, high linearity, electro-optic bandwidth of at least 70 GHz and modulation rates up to 112 Gbit/s. The high-performance modulator is realized by seamless integration of high-contrast waveguide based on Lithium Niobate - the most mature modulator material - with compact, low-loss silicon circuits. The hybrid platform demonstrated here allows for the combination of 'best-in-breed' active and passive components, opening up new avenues for enabling future high-speed, energy efficient and cost-effective optical communication networks.