Transparent conductive oxide-gated silicon microring with extreme resonance wavelength tunability

Abstract

Transparent conductive oxides have attracted escalating research interest for integrated photonic devices and metasurfaces due to the extremely large electro-optic modulation of the refractive index by the free-carrier-induced plasma dispersion effect. In this paper, we have designed and fabricated a silicon microring resonator using an indium-tin oxide gate as the electric-tuning electrode. It achieved an ultralarge resonance wavelength tunability of 271 pm/V, which is obtained through the reduced width of the ring waveguide and a high-dielectric-constant HfO2 insulator. We demonstrated a broad resonance wavelength tuning range of over 2 nm with an ultrafast response time of less than 12 ns and near-zero static power consumption, which outperforms traditional thermal tuning.