Low-loss high-extinction-ratio single-drive push-pull silicon Michelson interferometric modulator

We demonstrate a high-speed silicon carrier-depletion Michelson interferometric (MI) modulator with a low onchip insertion loss of 3 dB. The modulator features a compact size of < 1 mm(2) and a static high extinction ratio of >30 dB. The V-pi . L-pi of the MI modulator is 0.95-1.26 V . cm under a reverse bias of -1 to -8 V, indicating a high modulation efficiency. Experimental results show that a 4-level pulse amplitude modulation up to 20 Gbaud is achieved with a bit error rate of 6 x 10(-3), and a 30 Gb/s binary phase-shift-keying modulation is realized with an error vector magnitude of 25.8%.