Low loss and high speed silicon optical modulator based on a lateral carrier depletion structure

A high speed and low loss silicon optical modulator based on carrier depletion has been made using an original structure consisting of a p-doped slit embedded in the intrinsic region of a lateral pin diode. This design allows a good overlap between the optical mode and carrier density variations. Insertion loss of 5 dB has been measured with a contrast ratio of 14 dB for a 3 dB bandwidth of 10 GHz. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America.