Parallel directional coupler based dual-polarization electro-absorption modulator using epsilon near-zero material

Abstract Electro-optical modulation, where a radio frequency signal can be encoded in an optical field, is crucial to decide the overall performance of an integrated photonics system. Due to the growing internet penetration rate worldwide, polarization-division-multiplexing (PDM) technique has emerged to increase the link capacity, where polarization-independent modulators are desirable to reduce system complexity. In this study, we propose a novel parallel directional coupler based dual-polarization electro-absorption modulator based on epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) material. The proposed design is capable of independent and synchronized modulation of two fundamental modes viz. transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) mode of a standard silicon (Si) rib waveguide. Indium-tin-oxide (ITO)–Si based two parallel hybrid plasmonic waveguides (HPW 1 and HPW 2 ) are placed such that fundamental TM (TE) mode of the input bus waveguide can be coupled to HPW 1 (HPW 2 ). The ENZ-state of ITO, acquired upon two independent electrical gating, enables large modulation depth by utilizing enhancement of electric field at the absorptive carrier accumulation layer. With a 27 μ m active length, the extinction ratio (ER) of the proposed design is 10.11 dB (9.66 dB) for TM (TE) modulation at 1550 nm wavelength. This results in a 0.45 dB ER-discrepancy and indicates the polarization-insensitive nature of the modulator. The insertion losses and modulation bandwidths of our design are less than 1 dB and more than 100 GHz, respectively, for both polarizations over the entire C-band of wavelength. The proposed design can find potential applications in the PDM-enabled integrated photonics systems and high speed optical interconnections at data center networks.