Modulation linearity analysis of depletion-type Si ring modulator (Conference Presentation)

The depletion-type Si ring modulator (RM) is of great interest among many Si photonic devices for optical interconnect applications because it has a small size, low power consumption, and large modulation bandwidth. Although the major application of the Si RM are digital optical interconnect systems, there is another application of importance, namely microwave photonics in which the modulation linearity is a key performance parameter. We investigate the modulation linearity performance in terms of spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of a RM device fabricated by IHP Si PIC foundry. The device has 8-um radius, 290-nm coupling gap and the nominal peak doping concentration of 7×1017 cm−3 for p-region and 3×1018 cm−3 for n-region. The measured SFDR is 78.7 dB·Hz2/3. The major sources of non-linearity of this device are the nonlinear free-carrier plasma dispersion effect in PN junction as well as the nonlinear resonance characteristics. We also perform the numerical simulation of RM SFDR using key device parameters extracted from measurement. The simulation results match well with the measurement results. With this numerical model, we are able to identify the exact cause of RM nonlinearity and come up with suggestions for improving RM linearity.