Physical modeling of optical modulators for optical link analysis : Optical link analysis in silicon photonics technologies

Abstract: According to the 2018 Ethernet Roadmap projections, the requirements for high speed links keep increasing every year, always keeping an eye on the energy per bit consumption of the communication system. The Ethernet requirements are estimated to reach 1Tbps by 2022-2025. Optical links are one of the most concrete solutions to satisfy bandwidth requirements at low energy consumption. An optical link is a communication system that consists of a single end-to-end optical circuit. In contrast with vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) technology, which is based on a direct laser modulation, silicon photonics technology (SPT) is based on indirect modulation. In order to perform the modulation, electro-optical modulators are needed in the optical link system for electrically modulating the optical power.This master thesis, developed at imec, will present the modeling of two different technologies of optical modulators: Silicon Ring Modulator and the Franz-Keldysh ElectroAbsorption Modulator. The work was initiated, since there were no available models of these devices in the actual framework for link analysis. First a preliminary study of the physical principles of the two devices was performed, in order to build the Matlab models. Then, these models were fitted with measurements, in order to adjust them to real-life behavior. After having obtained two working models of the two modulators, an alreadyexisting framework was used, to compare the energy consumption per bit in the optical link. However, the results obtained with the simulation didn’t highlight a technology to be preferred to the other.