Design and Performance Analysis of Silicon Mach Zehnder Modulator and Micro Ring Modulator For Data Centre Applications

Abstract

The surge in network traffic has stress on data centres. Data centres employ optical newlinetechnologies for data transmission to address the increased demand. The prerequisite newlinefor high-speed data transmission is the efficient modulation of an optical modulator. newlineThe Electro-optic silicon modulator works on the principle of the plasma dispersion newlineeffect. In this study, electro-optic modulators such as Mach Zehnder modulator and ring newlinemodulator are investigated. The overall performance of the modulator is determined newlineby design choices and the performance metrics such as modulator drive voltage/power newlineconsumption/energy per bit transmission, modulator loss, modulation speed/switching newlinespeed, modulation efficiency, modulation depth or extinction ratio, device footprint, newlinebandwidth, jitter and bit error rate. The performance of the modulator is based on newlinethe phase shifter which consists of a PN diode. The efficiency of the phase shifter is newlinedependent on the doping pattern and concentration. Four doping patterns are proposed newlineto improve the performance metrics of TW-MZM. The TW electrode for the MZM is newlineoptimized for each design to reduce return loss and obtain index matching for efficient newlinehigh-speed modulation. A step based multiple PN junction is proposed to improve the newlineperformance of the ring modulator. The fabrication sensitivity in the ring modulator newlineis reduced with the help of a curved coupler. The system-level analysis comprising of newlinetransmission link analysis, speed analysis and transmission distance analysis are also newlineperformed on the proposed models to ensure the inter and intra data centre applications. newlineThe proposed models are suitable for 100GPSM4 and 100GCWDM4 applications. newlineIn the transmission distance analysis, corning SMF-28 fibre was used as a guiding newlinemedium. It is inferred from the analysis that model IV-TW-MZM supports transmission newlinefor higher bit rate, and for lower bit rate (35 Gbps) model I-TW-MZM supports longer newlinetransmission. It is inferred that the proposed RM - ring modulator at 80 Gbps can newlinetransmit the data for 5: