Silicon carbide

Voltage

Engineering

Silicon on insulator

Metallurgy

Materials science

Optical modulator

Silicon

Phase noise

Photonics

Physics

Optics

Electro-optic modulator

Silicon photonics

Phase modulation

Pockels effect

CMOS

Optoelectronics

Electrical engineering

Nature Communications

Owing to its attractive optical and electronic properties, silicon carbide is an emerging platform for integrated photonics. However an integral component of the platform is missing-an electro-optic modulator, a device which encodes electrical signals onto light. As a non-centrosymmetric crystal, silicon carbide exhibits the Pockels effect, yet a modulator has not been realized since the discovery of this effect more than three decades ago. Here we design, fabricate, and demonstrate a Pockels modulator in silicon carbide. Specifically, we realize a waveguide-integrated, small form-factor, gigahertz-bandwidth modulator that operates using complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-level voltages on a thin film of silicon carbide on insulator. Our device is fabricated using a CMOS foundry compatible fabrication process and features no signal degradation, no presence of photorefractive effects, and stable operation at high optical intensities (913 kW/mm2), allowing for high optical signal-to-noise ratios for modern communications. Our work unites Pockels electro-optics with a CMOS foundry compatible platform in silicon carbide.

Integrated silicon carbide electro-optic modulator