Low-Power consumption Franz-Keldysh effect plasmonic modulator

TL;DR

This paper presents a low-power, CMOS-compatible plasmonic modulator utilizing the Franz-Keldysh effect in germanium on silicon, achieving high extinction ratio and ultra-low energy consumption through integrated simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel low-energy plasmonic modulator based on the Franz-Keldysh effect with optimized design and simulation results.

Findings

3.3 dB extinction ratio at 1647 nm

Energy consumption as low as 20 fJ/bit

Operates under 3 V bias voltage

Abstract

In this paper we report on a low energy consumption CMOS-compatible plasmonic modulator based on Franz-Keldysh effect in germanium on silicon. We performed integrated electro-optical simulations in order to optimize the main characteristics of the modulator. A 3.3 $dB$ extinction ratio for a 30 ${\mu}m$ long modulator is demonstrated under 3 $V$ bias voltage at an operation wavelength of 1647 $nm$. The estimated energy consumption is as low as 20 $fJ/bit$.