A low-power high-speed InP microdisk modulator heterogeneously integrated on a SOI waveguide

We report on the modulation characteristics of indium phosphide (InP) based microdisks heterogeneously integrated on a silicon-on- insulator (SOI) waveguide. We present static extinction ratios and dynamic operation up to 10 Gb/s. Operation with a bit-error rate below 1 × 10 -9 is demonstrated at 2.5, 5.0 and 10.0 Gb/s and the performance is compared with that of a commercial modulator. Power penalties are analyzed with respect to the pattern length. The power consumption is calculated and compared with state-of-the-art integrated modulator concepts. We demonstrate that InP microdisk modulators combine low-power and low- voltage operation with low footprint and high-speed. Moreover, the devices can be fabricated using the same technology as for lasers, detectors and wavelength converters, making them very attractive for co-integration. © 2012 Optical Society of America.