Abstract

We characterize the modulation linearity of a silicon Mach–Zehnder modulator with a single-drive push–pull configuration. The 3-dB electro-optic bandwidths of the modulator are 15 and 32 GHz at 0 and 6 V reverse biases, respectively. The best spurious-free dynamic ranges (SFDRs) for the second-order harmonic distortion and the third-order intermodulation distortion are measured to be 97.7 dB·Hz^2/3 and 85.9 dB·Hz^1/2. The experimental measurement demonstrates that such a drive scheme can effectively reduce the modulation nonlinearity, especially the second harmonic distortion. Multi-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) is achieved using this high-linearity modulator with PAM-2,3,4,5 at a symbol rate of 40 Gbaud/s and PAM-8 at a symbol rate of 25 Gbaud/s.

© 2016 IEEE

Modeling and optimization of a single-drive push–pull silicon Mach–Zehnder modulator

Yanyang Zhou, Linjie Zhou, Haike Zhu, Chiyan Wong, Yida Wen, Lei Liu, Xinwan Li, and Jianping Chen
Photon. Res. 4(4) 153-161 (2016)

Highly linear silicon traveling wave Mach-Zehnder carrier depletion modulator based on differential drive

Matthew Streshinsky, Ali Ayazi, Zhe Xuan, Andy Eu-Jin Lim, Guo-Qiang Lo, Tom Baehr-Jones, and Michael Hochberg
Opt. Express 21(3) 3818-3825 (2013)

High-speed low-voltage single-drive push-pull silicon Mach-Zehnder modulators

Po Dong, Long Chen, and Young-kai Chen
Opt. Express 20(6) 6163-6169 (2012)

Method to improve the linearity of the silicon Mach-Zehnder optical modulator by doping control

Jianfeng Ding, Sizhu Shao, Lei Zhang, Xin Fu, and Lin Yang
Opt. Express 24(21) 24641-24648 (2016)

Numerical investigation of the linearity of graphene-based silicon waveguide modulator

Yuansheng Tao, Haowen Shu, Ming Jin, Xingjun Wang, Linjie Zhou, and Weiwen Zou
Opt. Express 27(6) 9013-9031 (2019)