Large optical spectral range dispersion engineered silicon-based photonic crystal waveguide modulator

We present a dispersion engineered slow light silicon-based photonic crystal waveguide PIN modulator. Low-dispersion slow light transmission over 18nm bandwidth under the silica light line with a group index of 26.5 is experimentally confirmed. We investigate the variations of the modulator figure of merit, V-pi x L, as a function of the optical carrier wavelength over the bandwidth of the fundamental photonic crystal waveguide defect mode. A large signal operation with a record low maximum V-pi x L of 0.0464 V.mm over the low-dispersion optical spectral range is demonstrated. We also report the device operation at 2GHz. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America