| Issue |
J. Eur. Opt. Soc.-Rapid Publ.
Volume 13, Number 1, 2017
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 3 | |
| Number of page(s) | 9 | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1186/s41476-016-0030-8 | |
| Published online | 19 January 2017 | |
Research
Experimental characterization towards an in-fibre integrated silicon slab based all-optical modulator
Faculty of Engineering and the Nano-Technology Center, Bar-Ilan University, 52900, Ramat Gan, Israel
Received:
11
October
2016
Accepted:
16
December
2016
Background: Due to the industrially increasing interest in optics communication the field of all-optical modulation is becoming more and more popular. However, no in-fibre integrated miniaturized devices which provide current solutions were suggested as all-optical modulators with sufficient modulation depth and with low power consumption.
Methods: In this paper, an all-optical silicon modulator with improved modulation depth is presented. The modulator will be developed as an in-fibre device for optics communication applications. The modulator is a silicon slab, 50 and 470 μm thick which is coated on both sides to get an improved Fabry-Perot resonator for laser beam at wavelength of 1550 nm. The modulator operation is based on the plasma dispersion effect which is induced by a pulsed visible laser beam acting as the pump for the creation of free charge carriers.
Results: We have proved the coating withstands high energy fluency of the laser pulse. The different recombination and heat processes are examined. Our silicon based Fabry-Perot resonator increases the intrinsic c-Si finesse to 30. The improved finesse is shown to have significant effect on the modulation depth up to 12 dB.
Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge this is the first experimental feasibility study of an all-optical modulator with sufficient modulation depth and with low power consumption which is also an in-fibre integrated miniaturized device based upon Si slab. Extensive experimental and numerical studies presented in this paper examine the influence of thermal effects and the sample parameters on the response time and on the modulation depth and the power consumption of the in-fibre integrated device. Apart from being a modulator, the proposed device can also act as tunable spectral filter.
Key words: Optical system design / Interference / Modulation / Transmission / Attenuation
© The Author(s) 2017
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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