Miniature mid-infrared thermooptic switch with photonic crystal waveguide based silicon-on-sapphire Mach–Zehnder interferometers

Abstract

Ultracompact thermooptically tuned photonic crystal waveguide (PCW) based Mach–Zehnder interferometers (MZIs) working in silicon-on-sapphire in mid-infrared regime have been proposed and demonstrated. We designed and fabricated a PCW based silicon thermo-optic (TO) switch operating at 3.43 μm. Both steady-state and transient thermal analyses were performed to evaluate the thermal performance of the TO MZIs. The required π phase shift between the two arms of the MZI has been successfully achieved within an 80 μm interaction distance. The maximum modulation depth of 74% was demonstrated for switching power of 170 mW.