Near-Infrared Nanophotonics through Dynamic Control of Carrier Density in Conducting Ceramics
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Major breakthroughs in silicon photonics often come from the integration of new materials into the platform, from bonding III-Vs for on-chip lasers to growth of Ge for high-speed photodiodes. This report describes the integration of transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) onto silicon waveguides to enable ultra-compact (<10 μm) electro-optical modulators. These modulators exploit the "epsilon-near-zero" effect in TCOs to create a strong light-matter interaction and allow for a significant reduction in footprint. Waveguide-integrated devices fabricated in the Sandia Microfab demonstrated gigahertz-speed operation of epsilon-near-zero based modulators for the first time. Numerical modeling of these devices matched well with theory and showed a path for significant improvements in device performance with high-carrier-mobility TCOs such as cadmium oxide. A cadmium oxide sputtering capability has been brought online at Sandia; integration of these high mobility films is the subject of future work to develop and mature this exciting class of Si photonics devices.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000; NA0003525
- OSTI ID:
- 1763237
- Report Number(s):
- SAND--2019-13705; 681302
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English