Slow light with interleaved p‐n junction to enhance performance of integrated Mach‐Zehnder silicon modulators

Abstract Slow light is a very important concept in nanophotonics, especially in the context of photonic crystals. In this work, we apply our previous design of band‐edge slow light in silicon waveguide gratings [M. Passoni et al, Opt. Express 26, 8470 (2018)] to Mach‐Zehnder modulators based on the plasma dispersion effect. The key idea is to employ an interleaved p‐n junction with the same periodicity as the grating, in order to achieve optimal matching between the electromagnetic field profile and the depletion regions of the p‐n junction. The resulting modulation efficiency is strongly improved as compared to common modulators based on normal rib waveguides, even in a bandwidth of 20–30 nm near the band edge, while the total insertion loss due to free carriers is not increased. The present concept is promising in view of realizing slow‐light modulators for silicon photonics with reduced energy dissipation.