Analysis of a compact modulator incorporating a hybrid silicon/electro-optic polymer waveguide

The design and simulation of a novel resonant cavity optical modulator is presented in this paper. The device incorporates a hybrid silicon/electro-optic (EO) polymer slot waveguide in the cavity region with distributed Bragg reflectors in single-mode silicon waveguide regions at each end of the cavity to create a modulator with a large modulation depth, short device length, and a low drive voltage for use in future high-speed integrated optics applications. Full three-dimensional simulations of this device structure are computationally very expensive; therefore, the periodicity of the device has been exploited to allow for a cascade matrix approach to be employed to reduce the time and computational resources necessary for accurate simulation of light propagation during the optimization phase of the device design.