High modulation efficiency micro-ring modulator with low driving voltage for high speed optical interconnection

A high modulation efficiency depletion mode silicon micro-ring modulator with NRZ modulation rate up to 128 Gb/s has been demonstrated. The MRM utilizes a meandering doping structure to enhance the overlap factor between the carrier variation region and light field to improve modulation efficiency at 33.5 pm/V, ∼38% improvement from a conventional doping design. It has a quality factor of ∼5200, a high electro-optical bandwidth above 67 GHz, and can reach 110 GHz under the optical peaking effect. The drive voltage of the MRM loading a 128 Gb/s signal is 1.36 V; the corresponding power consumption is ∼8.54 fJ/bit.