Electrical engineering

Physics

Bandwidth (computing)

Modulation (music)

Engineering

Dielectric

Composite material

Power (physics)

Gigabit

Acoustics

Materials science

Efficient energy use

Energy consumption

Computer science

Silicon

Quantum mechanics

Reliability (semiconductor)

Optoelectronics

Polymer

Telecommunications

Nature Communications

To reduce the ever-increasing energy consumption in datacenters, one of the effective approaches is to increase the ambient temperature, thus lowering the energy consumed in the cooling systems. However, this entails more stringent requirements for the reliability and durability of the optoelectronic components. Herein, we fabricate and demonstrate silicon-polymer hybrid modulators which support ultra-fast single-lane data rates up to 200 gigabits per second, and meanwhile feature excellent reliability with an exceptional signal fidelity retained at extremely-high ambient temperatures up to 110 °C and even after long-term exposure to high temperatures. This is achieved by taking advantage of the high electro-optic (EO) activities (in-device n3r33 = 1021 pm V−1), low dielectric constant, low propagation loss (α, 0.22 dB mm−1), and ultra-high glass transition temperature (Tg, 172 °C) of the developed side-chain EO polymers. The presented modulator simultaneously fulfils the requirements of bandwidth, EO efficiency, and thermal stability for EO modulators. It could provide ultra-fast and reliable interconnects for energy-hungry and harsh-environment applications such as datacentres, 5G/B5G, autonomous driving, and aviation systems, effectively addressing the energy consumption issue for the next-generation optical communication. Information and communication datacentres require a large amount of energy for their cooling systems, which could be decreased by working at higher temperatures. Here, the authors introduce a silicon-polymer hybrid modulator that maintains high data rates for long periods at high temperatures that could be used under such conditions, to reduce energy consumption.

High-temperature-resistant silicon-polymer hybrid modulator operating at up to 200 Gbit s−1 for energy-efficient datacentres and harsh-environment applications