Thermally tunable silicon racetrack resonators with ultralow tuning power

Opt Express. 2010 Sep 13;18(19):20298-304. doi: 10.1364/OE.18.020298.

Abstract

We present thermally tunable silicon racetrack resonators with an ultralow tuning power of 2.4 mW per free spectral range. The use of free-standing silicon racetrack resonators with undercut structures significantly enhances the tuning efficiency, with one order of magnitude improvement of that for previously demonstrated thermo-optic devices without undercuts. The 10%-90% switching time is demonstrated to be ~170 µs. Such low-power tunable micro-resonators are particularly useful as multiplexing devices and wavelength-tunable silicon microcavity modulators.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Energy Transfer
  • Equipment Design
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Heating / instrumentation*
  • Optical Devices*
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / instrumentation*
  • Silicon / chemistry*
  • Temperature
  • Transducers*

Substances

  • Silicon