Low-Power consumption Franz-Keldysh effect plasmonic modulator

Abstract

In this paper we report on a low energy consumption CMOS-compatible plasmonic modulator based on Franz-Keldysh effect in germanium on silicon. We performed integrated electro-optical simulations in order to optimize the main characteristics of the modulator. A 3.3 dB extinction ratio for a 30 µm long modulator is demonstrated under 3 V bias voltage at an operation wavelength of 1647 nm. The estimated energy consumption is as low as 20 fJ/bit.