Capacitive Modulator Design Optimization Using Si and Strained-SiGe for Datacom Applications

Silicon photonics has become an industrial reality for datacom applications. Nevertheless, as Si suffers from a low electro-optic effect, commercial modulators are few-mm long. The efficiency can be enhanced by using strained-SiGe or by using a semiconductor insulator semiconductor (SIS) architecture. In this paper, we develop a model based on a perturbative approach to optimize capacitive modulator using full-Si or including a thin layer of strained SiGe. This model is coupled with an optimization algorithm in order to estimate the highest optimal modulation amplitude for different operating frequencies.