Imec Demonstrates 50GHz Ge Waveguide Electro-Absorption Modulator

At OFC 2015, the largest global conference and exposition for optical communications, imec, its associated lab at Ghent University (Intec), and Stanford University demonstrated a compact germanium (Ge) waveguide electro-absorption modulator (EAM) with a modulation bandwidth beyond 50GHz.
 
Combining state-of-the-art extinction ratio and low insertion loss with an ultra-low capacitance of just 10fF, the demonstrated EAM marks an important milestone for the realization of next-generation silicon integrated optical interconnects at 50Gb/s and beyond.
 
“This achievement is a milestone for realizing silicon optical transceivers for datacom applications at 50Gb/s and beyond,” said Joris Van Campenhout, program director at imec. “We have developed a modulator that addresses the bandwidth and density requirements for future chip-level optical interconnects.”