Abstract
BackgroundDue to the industrially increasing interest in optics communication the field of all-optical modulation is becoming more and more popular. However, no in-fibre integrated miniaturized devices which provide current solutions were suggested as all-optical modulators with sufficient modulation depth and with low power consumption.MethodsIn this paper, an all-optical silicon modulator with improved modulation depth is presented. The modulator will be developed as an in-fibre device for optics communication applications. The modulator is a silicon slab, 50 and 470 μm thick which is coated on both sides to get an improved Fabry-Perot resonator for laser beam at wavelength of 1550 nm. The modulator operation is based on the plasma dispersion effect which is induced by a pulsed visible laser beam acting as the pump for the creation of free charge carriers.ResultsWe have proved the coating withstands high energy fluency of the laser pulse. The different recombination and heat processes are examined. Our silicon based Fabry-Perot resonator increases the intrinsic c-Si finesse to 30. The improved finesse is shown to have significant effect on the modulation depth up to 12 dB.ConclusionsTo the best of our knowledge this is the first experimental feasibility study of an all-optical modulator with sufficient modulation depth and with low power consumption which is also an in-fibre integrated miniaturized device based upon Si slab. Extensive experimental and numerical studies presented in this paper examine the influence of thermal effects and the sample parameters on the response time and on the modulation depth and the power consumption of the in-fibre integrated device. Apart from being a modulator, the proposed device can also act as tunable spectral filter.
Highlights
Due to the industrially increasing interest in optics communication the field of all-optical modulation is becoming more and more popular
Schönenberger et al [5] demonstrated SOIs devices which have reached power requirements of 6 fJ for 3 dB modulation depth with a switch-on time of few picoseconds and recovery time limited by the free charge carriers (FCC) life time being 500 ps
To the best of our knowledge, we demonstrate for the first time the experimental feasibility of a simplified coated Si slab all optical modulator with sufficient modulation depth for compact, low power consumption integrated in-fibre optics communication system
Summary
Due to the industrially increasing interest in optics communication the field of all-optical modulation is becoming more and more popular. No in-fibre integrated miniaturized devices which provide current solutions were suggested as all-optical modulators with sufficient modulation depth and with low power consumption. Lipson et al [8,9,10] have shown optical modulation in Si ring resonators in which light is confined and resonates in order to enhance the optical modulation effects. They used Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) ring resonator and in order to get the optical effect they shone with pump power of 25 pJ. Even though the absorption in a-Si:H is an order of magnitude above that of c-Si, 1.63 · 10−16 cm compared to 1.45 · 10−17 cm, they mainly use the electro-absorption (EA) effect and not the Pinhas et al Journal of the European Optical Society-Rapid Publications (2017) 13:3 electro-refractive (ER) effect which has a more dominant influence to the modulation [9], which reduces the efficiency of the device
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