A Compact, Low-Drive-Voltage Mach-Zehnder Modulator Using Serially-Coupled Rings

Abstract

A novel, low-drive-voltage, and compact modulator using serially-coupled ring resonators in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) linearly reduces the modulator’s energy consumption as the number of rings in the chain increases. Such an MZI with three serially-coupled rings is invested for typical silicon photonics platforms.