Integrated NiSi waveguide heaters for CMOS-compatible silicon thermo-optic devices

Abstract

We report the performance of NiSi-based heaters integrated with submicrometer silicon waveguides. The heaters were fabricated using a standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) silicidation process on a thin silicon slab laterally connected with a silicon rib waveguide. The intrinsic properties of such NiSi waveguide heaters were characterized by using them as thermo-optic phase shifters in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. The power consumption $P_{\pi }$ for obtaining a π phase shift was measured to be as low as 20 mW, using CMOS-compatible drive voltages. The time constant of the thermo-optic response was less than $2.8\mu \text{s}$. Simulations suggest that a further reduction in the power consumption $P_{\pi }$ is feasible.

© 2010 Optical Society of America

Ultralow crosstalk nanosecond-scale nested 2 × 2 Mach–Zehnder silicon photonic switch

Nicolas Dupuis, Alexander V. Rylyakov, Clint L. Schow, Daniel M. Kuchta, Christian W. Baks, Jason S. Orcutt, Douglas M. Gill, William M. J. Green, and Benjamin G. Lee
Opt. Lett. 41(13) 3002-3005 (2016)

High contrast 40Gbit/s optical modulation in silicon

D. J. Thomson, F. Y. Gardes, Y. Hu, G. Mashanovich, M. Fournier, P. Grosse, J-M. Fedeli, and G. T. Reed
Opt. Express 19(12) 11507-11516 (2011)

Efficient, compact and low loss thermo-optic phase shifter in silicon

Nicholas C. Harris, Yangjin Ma, Jacob Mower, Tom Baehr-Jones, Dirk Englund, Michael Hochberg, and Christophe Galland
Opt. Express 22(9) 10487-10493 (2014)

Ultra-compact, low RF power, 10 Gb/s silicon Mach-Zehnder modulator

William M. J. Green, Michael J. Rooks, Lidija Sekaric, and Yurii A. Vlasov
Opt. Express 15(25) 17106-17113 (2007)

Low-power, 2×2 silicon electro-optic switch with 110-nm bandwidth for broadband reconfigurable optical networks

Joris Van Campenhout, William M. J. Green, Solomon Assefa, and Yurii A. Vlasov
Opt. Express 17(26) 24020-24029 (2009)