Abstract
We propose and demonstrate a new type of electro-optic polymeric microring resonators, where the shape of the transmission spectrum is controlled by losses and phase shifts induced at the asymmetric directional coupler between the cavity and the bus waveguide. The theoretical analysis of such Charon microresonators shows, depending on the coupler design, three different transmission characteristics: normal Lorentzian dips, asymmetric Fano resonances, and Lorentzian peaks. The combination of the active azo-stilbene based polyimide SANDM2 surrounded by the hybrid polymer Ormocomp allowed the first experimental demonstration of electro-optic modulation in Charon microresonators. The low-loss modulators (down to 0.6 dB per round trip), with a radius of 50 microm, were produced by micro-embossing and exhibit either highly asymmetric and steep Fano resonances with large 43-GHz modulation bandwidth or strong resonances with 11-dB extinction ratio. We show that Charon microresonators can lead to 1-V half wave voltage all-polymer micrometer-scale devices with larger tolerances to coupler fabrication limitations and wider modulation bandwidths than classical ring resonators.
Highlights
The growing demand on telecommunication systems allowing for real-time multimedia streaming makes polymeric devices interesting for electro-optic modulation with bandwidths beyond 100 GHz
In the last few years, excellent modulation bandwidths and driving voltages have been demonstrated in centimeter-scale polymeric Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZI) [1,2,3]
The electro-optic microring resonators were characterized by transmission and electro-optic modulation experiments using TE and TM polarized light from the tunable laser diode Santec TSL-220 focussed onto the input facets of the input bus waveguides
Summary
The growing demand on telecommunication systems allowing for real-time multimedia streaming makes polymeric devices interesting for electro-optic modulation with bandwidths beyond 100 GHz. In the last few years, excellent modulation bandwidths and driving voltages have been demonstrated in centimeter-scale polymeric Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZI) [1,2,3]. Despite this well established device technology, microring resonators have been shown to have the potential of higher miniaturization, better velocity mismatch tolerances and larger bandwidths than MZI [4]. As insulating dielectrics, are advantageous because of the electronic nature of the electro-optic (EO) response preserving the modulation performances beyond 100 GHz [5] and often require simpler technological prerequisites for the fabrication of the devices if compared to semiconductors (e.g., see [6]). The presented approach provides better design freedom of the microring devices and can be regarded as a potential breakthrough towards further miniaturization of polymeric integrated optics systems
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