Luo Xianshu, Tu Xiaoguang, Song Junfeng, Ding Lu, Fang Qing, Liow Tsung-Yang, Yu Mingbin, Lo Guo-Qiang
Institute of Microelectronics, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, 11 Science Park Road, Science Park II, 117685 Singapore.
Opt Express. 2013 Jul 15;21(14):16570-7. doi: 10.1364/OE.21.016570.
We investigate the performances of a silicon PN-junction Mach-Zehnder modulator for analog application. The slope efficiency and spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of such a modulator upon carrier depletion and carrier injection effects are characterized and compared. Input RF frequency-dependence measurements show that the depletion-type modulator is usually with ~20 dB ∙ Hz(2/3) higher SFDR comparing to the injection-type modulator, yet with an order-of-magnitude lower slope efficiency. For the depletion-type and injection-type modulators, the measured maximum SFDRs are respectively ~95 dB ∙ Hz(2/3) and 75 dB∙Hz(2/3), with maximum slope efficiency of 0.3 V(-1) and 8 V(-1<). We numerically model the SFDR by using the experimentally extracted effective refractive index change, which shows good agreement with the measurements.
