Electro-Optical Modulation Based on Pockels Effect in BaTiO3 With a Multi-Domain Structure

The influence of an in-plane multi-domain structure in BaTiO3 films grown on SrTiO3/Si buffers for highly efficient electro-optic modulation has been analyzed. The modulation performance can be significantly enhanced by rotating a certain angle, the optical waveguide, with respect to the BaTiO3 crystallographic axes. A robust electro-optical performance against variations in the domain structure as well as the lowest V-pi voltage can be achieved by using the rotation angles between 35 degrees and 55 degrees. Our calculations show that Vp voltages below 1.7 V for a modulation length of 2 mm can be obtained by means of a CMOS compatible hybrid silicon/BaTiO3 waveguide structure.