2011, 7(2):101-104.
Abstract:
To enhance the electro-optic (EO) modulation efficiency and realize the impedance-matching, a polymer-on-silicon multimode
interference (MMI) Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) -based electro-optic (EO) switch is designed and optimized. Under the
central operation wavelength of 1550 nm, the driving voltages of the designed switch are 0 and ±1.375 V, respectively, with
a short active region length of 5 mm, and the characteristic impedance of the electrode is about 49.6 Ω. The manufacture tolerance
is analyzed for instructing the device fabrication. The results show that to realize ideal switching function, high fabrication
accuracy on the buffer thickness, core thickness, electrode width and MMI waveguide width is extremely required, and a small
voltage drift of −0.03 0.05 V is also expected for reducing the crosstalk to less than −30 dB. The allowed 3 dB bandwidth
is 60 nm, and within this spectrum range, the insertion loss and crosstalk are less than 6.71 dB and −30 dB, respectively.