title: High-contrast 40 Gb/s operation of a 500 μm long silicon carrier-depletion slow wave modulator.
abstract: In this Letter, we demonstrate a highly efficient, compact, high-contrast and low-loss silicon slow wave modulator based on a traveling-wave Mach-Zehnder interferometer with two 500 μm long slow wave phase shifters. 40  Gb/s operation with 6.6 dB extinction ratio at quadrature and with an on-chip insertion loss of only 6 dB is shown. These results confirm the benefits of slow light as a means to enhance the performance of silicon modulators based on the plasma dispersion effect.
authors.affiliation: Nanophotonics Technology Center, Universitat Politècnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain. abrimont@ntc.upv.es
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brimont
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Thomson
authors.forename: F Y
authors.initials: FY
authors.lastname: Gardes
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Fedeli
authors.forename: G T
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Reed
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Martí
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sanchis