Electrooptic Modulation in Future All-Silicon Integrated Microwave Circuits: An Introduction of Gated MOSFET Devices With Increased Optical Emissions

Abstract

With the explosive growth of human society’s demand for information <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[1]</xref> , microwaves have become a vital information carrier for applications such as wireless communication, military radar, and electronic countermeasures. However, the processing rates and bandwidth of traditional microwave processing circuits are limited, which can create an electronic bottleneck for high-frequency microwave signals. Relying solely on traditional electrical systems has not been enough to meet the emerging demand for high-frequency microwave signal generation, transmission, and processing <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[2]</xref> , <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[3]</xref> . At the same time, broadband and low-loss photonics have led to an ever-increasing interest in generating, processing, controlling, and distributing microwave and millimeter-wave (mm-wave) signals for applications such as broadband wireless access networks, sensor networks, radar, satellite communication, instrumentation, and warfare systems <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[4]</xref> . In response, beginning in the 1990s, these two technologies merged and produced a new interdisciplinary field known as <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">microwave photonics</i> <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[5]</xref> , <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[6]</xref> .