Silicon electro-optic modulator based on an ITO-integrated tunable directional coupler

Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) has attracted great attention because of its electrically-induced epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) characteristics, which has allowed us to develop electro-absorption optical modulators. As an extended application of ITO in a silicon optical modulator, we propose a silicon electro-optic modulator based on an ITO-integrated tunable directional coupler. An ITO block placed at the center of the two-core silicon directional coupler plays a key role in attenuating the optical power of the guided modes. Strong confinement of the optical field at the ENZ layer of ITO with the nonzero imaginary part of ITO's permittivity let the guiding light experience high absorption as it propagates along the directional coupler. Numerical simulations reveal that the highest modulation depth of 5 dB is achievable at the ENZ region of ITO at a 1.55 μm wavelength. We can modulate the optical signals on an entire C-band ranging from a 1.530 to 1.565 μm wavelength with an on/off extinction ratio of larger than 4.6 dB. (paper)