title: Low-power silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) modulators for advanced modulation formats.
abstract: We demonstrate silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) electro-optic modulators that enable quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) and 16-state quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) with high signal quality and record-low energy consumption. SOH integration combines highly efficient electro-optic organic materials with conventional silicon-on-insulator (SOI) slot waveguides, and allows to overcome the intrinsic limitations of silicon as an optical integration platform. We demonstrate QPSK and 16QAM signaling at symbol rates of 28 GBd with peak-to-peak drive voltages of 0.6 V(pp). For the 16QAM experiment at 112 Gbit/s, we measure a bit-error ratio of 5.1 × 10⁻⁵ and a record-low energy consumption of only 19 fJ/bit.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lauermann
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Palmer
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Koeber
authors.forename: P C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Schindler
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Korn
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wahlbrink
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bolten
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Waldow
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Elder
authors.forename: L R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Dalton
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Leuthold
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Freude
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Koos
mesh_terms: D004560:Electricity; D004581:Electronics; D055095:Optics and Photonics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D009930:Organic Chemicals / Q000737:chemistry*; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D012825:Silicon / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D009930:Organic Chemicals; D012825:Silicon