Influence of carrier lifetime on performance of silicon p-i-n variable optical attenuators fabricated on submicrometer rib waveguides

doi:10.1364/OE.18.011282

Influence of carrier lifetime on performance of silicon p-i-n variable optical attenuators fabricated on submicrometer rib waveguides

Sungbong Park, Koji Yamada, Tai Tsuchizawa, Toshifumi Watanabe, Hiroyuki Shinojima, Hidetaka Nishi, Rai Kou, and Sei-ichi Itabashi »View Author Affiliations

Optics Express, Vol. 18, Issue 11, pp. 11282-11291 (2010)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.18.011282

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Abstract

We investigated influence of carrier lifetime on performance of silicon (Si) p-i-n variable optical attenuators (VOAs) on submicrometer Si rib waveguides. VOAs were fabricated with and without intentional implantation of lattice defects into their intrinsic region. Carrier lifetime was measured by pulse responses for normal incidence of picosecond laser pulse of 775 nm to the VOA, as ~1 ns and ~7 ns for the VOAs with and without defects, respectively. Carrier lifetime is determined by the sum of surface recombination and Auger recombination for VOAs without defects, while Schockley-Read-Hall recombination is dominant for the VOA with defects. As a result, attenuation efficiency (dB/mA) is 0.2 - 0.7 and 0.04 - 0.1, while 3-dB bandwidth is 40 - 100 MHz and over 200 MHz for the VOAs with and without defects, respectively. There is a trade-off relation between attenuation and response speed of the VOAs with respect to carrier lifetime i.e., attenuation efficiency is linearly proportional to the carrier lifetime, whereas response speed is inversely proportional to it.

OCIS Codes
(230.2090) Optical devices : Electro-optical devices
(230.7370) Optical devices : Waveguides

ToC Category:
Optical Devices

History
Original Manuscript: February 5, 2010
Revised Manuscript: April 8, 2010
Manuscript Accepted: April 11, 2010
Published: May 13, 2010

Citation
Sungbong Park, Koji Yamada, Tai Tsuchizawa, Toshifumi Watanabe, Hiroyuki Shinojima, Hidetaka Nishi, Rai Kou, and Sei-ichi Itabashi, "Influence of carrier lifetime on performance of silicon p-i-n variable optical attenuators fabricated on submicrometer rib waveguides," Opt. Express 18, 11282-11291 (2010)
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-18-11-11282

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References

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S. Nishihara, M. Nakamura, K. Nishimura, K. Kishine, S. Kimura, and K. Kato, “10.3 Gbit/s burst-mode PIN-TIA module with high sensitivity, wide dynamic range and quick response,” Electron. Lett. 44(3), 222 (2008). [CrossRef]

Appl. Phys. Lett.

D. Dimitropoulos, R. Jhaveri, R. Claps, J. C. S. Woo, and B. Jalali, “Lifetime of photogenerated carriers in silicon-on-insulator rib waveguides,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 86(7), 071115 (2005). [CrossRef]
J. Dziewior and W. Schmid, “Auger coefficients for highly doped and highly excited silicon,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 31(5), 346 (1977). [CrossRef]
T. Kuwayama, M. Ichimura, and E. Arai, “Interface recombination velocity of silicon-on-insulator wafers measured by microwave reflectance photoconductivity decay method with electric field,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 83(5), 928 (2003). [CrossRef]

Electron. Lett.

T. Kawai, M. Koga, M. Okuno, and T. Kitoh, “PLC type compact variable optical attenuator for photonic transport network,” Electron. Lett. 34(3), 264 (1998). [CrossRef]
S. Nishihara, M. Nakamura, K. Nishimura, K. Kishine, S. Kimura, and K. Kato, “10.3 Gbit/s burst-mode PIN-TIA module with high sensitivity, wide dynamic range and quick response,” Electron. Lett. 44(3), 222 (2008). [CrossRef]

IEEE J. Quantum Electron.

R. Soref and B. Bennett, “Electrooptical effects in silicon,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 23(1), 123–129 (1987). [CrossRef]

IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett.

H. Cai, X. M. Zhang, C. Lu, A. Q. Liu, and E. H. Khoo, “Linear MEMS variable optical attenuator using reflective elliptical mirror,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 17(2), 402–404 (2005). [CrossRef]

IEEE Trans. Electron. Dev.

D. K. Schroder, “Carrier lifetime in silicon,” IEEE Trans. Electron. Dev. 44(1), 160–170 (1997). [CrossRef]

J. Appl. Phys.

J. Linnros, “Carrier lifetime measurements using free carrier absorption transients. I. Principle and injection dependence,” J. Appl. Phys. 84(1), 275 (1998). [CrossRef]

J. Lightwave Technol.

C. K. Tang, G. T. Reed, A. J. Walton, and A. G. Rickman, “Low-loss, single-model optical phase modulator in SIMOX material,” J. Lightwave Technol. 12(8), 1394–1400 (1994). [CrossRef]

Nature

H. Rong, A. Liu, R. Jones, O. Cohen, D. Hak, R. Nicolaescu, A. Fang, and M. Paniccia, “An all-silicon Raman laser,” Nature 433(7023), 292–294 (2005). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Q. Xu, B. Schmidt, S. Pradhan, and M. Lipson, “Micrometre-scale silicon electro-optic modulator,” Nature 435(7040), 325–327 (2005). [CrossRef] [PubMed]

Opt. Express

Semicond. Sci. Technol.

D. W. Zheng, B. T. Smith, J. Dong, and M. Asghari, “On the effective carrier lifetime of a silicon p-i-n diode optical modulator,” Semicond. Sci. Technol. 23(6), 064006 (2008). [CrossRef]

Other

E. D. Palik, Handbook of Optical Constants of Solid (Academic Press, 1985), p. 565.
S. M. Sze, Physics of Semiconductor Devices (John Wiley & Sons, 1981), Chap 7.
I. E. Day, I. Evans, A. Knights, F. Hopper, S. Roberts, J. Johnston, S. Day, J. Luff, H. K. Tsang, and M. Asghari, “Tapered silicon waveguides for low insertion loss highly-efficient high-speed electronic variable optical attenuator,” in Proceedings of Optical Fiber Communication Conference, (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Atlanta, USA, 2003), pp. 249–251.
T. Tsuchizawa, K. Yamada, T. Watanabe, H. Shinojima, H. Nishi, S. Itabashi, S. Park, Y. Ishikawa, and K. Wada, “Monolithic Integration of Germanium Photodetectors and Silicon Wire Waveguides with Carrier Injection Structures,” in Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics/International Quantum Electronics Conference, OSA Technical Digest (CD) (Optical Society of America, 2009), paper CTuV2.
Y. Liu, C. W. Chow, C. H. Kwok, H. K. Tsang, and C. Lin, “Optical burst and transient equalizer for 10Gb/s amplified WDM-PON,” in Proceedings of Optical Fiber Communication and the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference, (Academic, Anaheim, USA, 2007), OThU7.
http://www.kotura.com .
K. Yamada, T. Tsuchizawa, T. Watanabe, H. Fukuda, H. Shinojima, and S. Itabashi, “Application of low-loss silicon photonic wire waveguides with carrier injection structures,” in Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Group IV Photonics, (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Tokyo, Japan, 2007), pp. 116–118.

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