High-Bandwidth Lumped Mach-Zehnder Modulators Based on Thin-Film Lithium Niobate

oleh: Peng Yang, Siwei Sun, Yuqiang Zhang, Rui Cao, Huimin He, Haiyun Xue, Fengman Liu

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2024-04-01

Deskripsi

Recently, lumped Mach-Zehnder Modulators (MZMs) have received renewed attention due to their potential for low power consumption and compact size. However, the practicality of lumped MZMs with conventional lumped electrodes (C−LEs) is limited by their lower electro−optical (EO) bandwidth. The reduction in EO bandwidth results from the inherent trade−off between EO bandwidth and half−wave voltage length product (<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msub><mi mathvariant="normal">V</mi><mi mathvariant="sans-serif">π</mi></msub><mi mathvariant="normal">L</mi></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>) within the C−LE architecture. This paper proposes a thin−film lithium niobate (TFLN)−based lumped MZM with capacitively−loaded lumped electrodes (CL−LEs). The purely linear EO effect of the LN eliminates the parasitic capacitance in the doped PN junction and enhances the EO bandwidth. Furthermore, the CL−LE structure can break the limitation between EO bandwidth and <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msub><mi mathvariant="normal">V</mi><mi mathvariant="sans-serif">π</mi></msub><mi mathvariant="normal">L</mi></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> inherent in the C−LE design. Simulations show the proposed device achieves a high EO bandwidth of 32.4 GHz and a low <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msub><mi mathvariant="normal">V</mi><mi mathvariant="sans-serif">π</mi></msub><mi mathvariant="normal">L</mi></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> of 1.15 V·cm. Due to the reduced capacitance and lower <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msub><mi mathvariant="normal">V</mi><mi mathvariant="sans-serif">π</mi></msub><mi mathvariant="normal">L</mi></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>, the power consumption of the device is as low as 0.1 pJ/bit. Simulation results indicate that the open−eye diagrams are achieved at 64 Gb/s for 1.5 mm TFLN lumped MZM, with an ER of 2.97 dB. Consequently, the proposed device architecture substantially enhances the performance of lumped MZMs, showing promise for application in short−reach optical interconnects within data centers.