Physics

Pockels effect

Laser

Phase noise

Phase modulation

Optics

Optical communication

Silicon photonics

Materials science

Optical modulator

Electro-optics

Photonics

Nanophotonics

Silicon

Electro-optic modulator

Integrated optics

Optoelectronics

Journal of Lightwave Technology

To develop a new generation of high-speed photonic modulators on silicon-technology-based photonics, new materials with large Pockels coefficients have been transferred to silicon substrates. Previous approaches focus on realizing stand-alone devices on dedicated silicon substrates, incompatible with the fabrication process in silicon foundries. In this work, we demonstrate monolithic integration of electro-optic modulators based on the Pockels effect in barium titanate (BTO) thin films into the back-end-of-line of a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) platform. Molecular wafer bonding allows fully PIC-compatible integration of BTO-based devices and is, as shown, scalable to 200 mm wafers. The PIC-integrated BTO Mach-Zehnder modulators outperform conventional Si photonic modulators in modulation efficiency, losses, and static tuning power. The devices show excellent V π L (0.2 Vcm) and V π Lα (1.3 VdB), work at high speed (25 Gbps), and can be tuned at low-static power consumption (100 nW). Our concept demonstrates the possibility of monolithic integration of Pockels-based electro-optic modulators in advanced silicon photonic platforms.

A BaTiO3-Based Electro-Optic Pockels Modulator Monolithically Integrated on an Advanced Silicon Photonics Platform