Carrier-induced refractive index changes in InP-based circular microresonators for low-voltage high-speed modulation

Abstract

Optical InP-based microresonator modulators which achieve low-voltage high-bandwidth modulation are presented, where resonant wavelength tuning of a circular resonator by free carrier injection is used as the modulation mechanism. Since thermal effects in small resonant cavities and switching speed limitations posed by minority carrier lifetime are the primary concerns in such types of devices, ion bombardment in microtoroidal structures is used to increase the speed of response. The modulation speed is enhanced by an order of magnitude.