Silicon thermooptical micromodulator with 700-kHz -3-dB bandwidth

A silicon Fabry-Perot waveguide modulator, operating at the fiber optic communication wavelengths of 1.3 and 1.55 μm, has been entirely fabricated using microelectronic techniques. The planar optical cavity has been defined by plasma etching and has a length of 100 μm. The device, based on the thermooptic effect, is electrically driven and exhibits a maximum modulation depths of 60%. The measured -3 dB bandwidth is 700 kHz, which is by far the best result ever reported, to our knowledge, for thermooptic effect based modulators.