Helios Fabs 40-Gbps Optical Modulator in Silicon
CEA-Leti (Grenoble, France) said a team of European researchers and companies has demonstrated a silicon-based 40-Gbit/s optical modulator with a record extinction ratio of 10dB (the power difference between the 1 and 0 data levels).
The Helios project members are continuing to design and fabricate the entire chain of silicon photonics devices, including a 16×10 Gb/s transceiver, a photonic QAM-10Gb/s wireless transmission system, and a mixed-analog and digital-transceiver module for multifunction antennas.
Designed and characterized by staff in the Silicon Photonics Group at the Advanced Technology Institute, University of Surrey, UK, the modulator circuit was fabricated in a CMOS-compatible process by Leti, which is coordinating the project. The Helios partners will present the results at the 8th International Conference on Group IV Photonics in London, Sept. 14-16.
‘This result is a major step towards high-bandwidth optical systems on silicon because it makes 40Gb/s modulators viable for commercial applications,” said Graham Reed, professor of silicon photonics at the University of Surrey.
Silicon photonics has generated growing interest for optical telecommunications or for optical interconnects in microelectronic circuits. CMOS photonics may lead to low-cost solutions for a range of applications such as optical communications, optical interconnections between semiconductor chips and circuit boards, optical signal processing, optical sensing, and biological applications.
