Theoretical investigation of ultracompact and

athermal Si electro-optic modulator based on

Cu-TiO2-Si hybrid plasmonic donut resonator
Shiyang Zhu,* G. Q. Lo, and D. L. Kwong
Institute of Microelectronics, A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), 11 Science Park Road,
Science Park-II, 117685 Singapore
*
zhusy@ime.a-star.edu.sg

Abstract: An ultracompact silicon electro-optic modulator operating at

1550-nm telecom wavelengths is proposed and analyzed theoretically,
which consists of a Cu-TiO2-Si hybrid plasmonic donut resonator
evanescently coupled with a conventional Si channel waveguide. Owing to
a negative thermo-optic coefficient of TiO2 (~-1.8 104 K1), the real part
of effective modal index of the curved Cu-TiO2-Si hybrid waveguide can be
temperature-independent (i.e., athermal) if the TiO2 interlayer and the
beneath Si core have a certain thickness ratio. A voltage applied between
the ring-shaped Cu cap and a cylinder metal electrode positioned at the
center of the donut, which makes Ohmic contact to Si, induces a ~1-nmthick free-electron accumulation layer at the TiO2/Si interface. The optical
field intensity in this thin accumulation layer is significantly enhanced if the
accumulation concentration is sufficiently large (i.e., > ~6 1020 cm3),
which in turn modulates both the resonance wavelengths and the extinction
ratio of the donut resonator simultaneously. For a modulator with the total
footprint inclusive electrodes of ~8.6 m2, 50-nm-thick TiO2, and 160-nmthick Si core, FDTD simulation predicts that it has an insertion loss of ~2
dB, a modulation depth of ~8 dB at a voltage swing of ~6 V, a speed-ofresponse of ~35 GHz, and a switching energy of ~0.45 pJ/bit, and it is
athermal around room temperature. The modulators performances can be
further improved by optimization of the coupling strength between the bus
waveguide and the donut resonator.
2013 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (250.7360) Waveguide modulators; (240.6680) Surface plasmons; (250.5403)
Plasmonics; (130.3120) Integrated optics devices.

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1. Introduction
A CMOS compatible integrated Si electro-optical (EO) modulator is a key component in Si
electronic photonic integrated circuits (EPICs) [1]. Many kinds of Si EO modulators have
been reported recently [2,3], mostly relying on the free-carrier dispersion effect of Si to
modulate the Si refractive index based on a MOS capacitor [4, 5], a PIN diode [6], or a PN
junction [7]. Either a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) [4,7] or a waveguide-ring resonator
(WRR) [5,6] is utilized to convert the phase variation into the intensity modulation. The WRR
modulators offer smaller footprints than the MZI modulators but at the price of narrower
optical bandwidth, higher temperature sensitivity due to the relatively large thermo-optic
(TO) coefficient of Si (~1.8 104 K1), and limited modulation speed due to the long photon
lifetime in the resonator if the resonator has a very high quality factor (Q value).
One approach to suppress the temperature sensitivity of Si resonators is by overlaying a
polymer coating with a negative TO coefficient [8], but polymers are currently not compatible
with CMOS process. Another approach is by overcoupling the ring resonator to a balanced
MZI [9], but it requires complex design and sacrifices the footprint. Moreover, due to the
fundamental diffraction limit of light propagation along Si waveguides, the WRR modulators

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are still quite large as compared with the nanoscale electronic devices. The minimum bending
radius is ~1.5 m for Si single-mode channel waveguides [10] and is usually larger than ~5
m for Si rib waveguides in which the EO modulators are implemented. The total footprint of
Si WRR modulators inclusive of the electrodes is usually larger than ~200 m2.
A technology emerging recently which can scale down the dimension of optical devices
far beyond the diffraction limit is plasmonics, which deals with surface plasmon polariton
(SPP) signal propagating along the metal-dielectric interfaces [11]. Several ultracompact
plasmonic EO modulators have been proposed and/or demonstrated [12,13]. However, they
mostly rely on active materials other than Si and/or require non-standard CMOS techniques
for fabrication. For ease of implementation into the exiting Si EPICs, it is preferred to use Si
as the active material and the modulator is waveguide-based. A horizontal Cu-insulator-Siinsulator-Cu nanoplasmonic waveguide is a plasmonic waveguide enabling to realize
plasmonic modulator [14], which has a MOS capacitor structure and the Si core can be used
as the active material. Electro-absorption (EA) and phase modulations have been
experimentally demonstrated based on this plasmonic waveguide [15,16], but a relatively
large driving voltage is required to reach 3-dB modulation in the EA modulators or -phase
shift in the MZI modulators. Another feasible plasmonic waveguide is a vertical Cu-insulatorSi hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPW) [17,18]. WRRs with radius of ~1-2 m and Q-value
of ~200-300 have been experimentally demonstrated based on the Cu-SiO2-Si HPW [19].
Theoretically, the radius of such plasmonic WRRs can be reduced to submicron (e.g., ~0.8
m) [20]. Moreover, if TiO2, which has a negative TO coefficient of ~-1.8 104 K1 and is
transparent at near-infrared wavelengths [21], is used as the insulator between the Cu-cap and
the Si core, the plasmonic WRRs can be athermal. TiO2 is also used as a gate dielectric in
MOS electronics, whose dielectric constant ranges from 4 to 86 depending on the detailed
fabrication processes [22]. The Cu-TiO2-Si HPW is also a MOS capacitor, thus enabling a
voltage to be applied between the Cu cap and the Si core to modulate its propagation
property. It is expected that the WRR modulators based on this hybrid plasmonic WRR may
overcome the abovementioned two critical issues of the conventional WRR modulators, i.e.,
footprint miniaturization and temperature-sensitivity suppression. This paper presents a
systematical investigation on ultracompact WRR modulators based on the Cu-TiO2-Si HPW.
2. Device structure
The structure of the proposed modular is shown in Fig. 1 schematically. It consists of a CuTiO2-Si hybrid plasmonic donut resonator and a bus waveguide. The modulator can be
seamlessly inserted in a dense Si channel waveguide-based photonic circuit. To reduce the
insertion loss, the bus waveguide is a conventional Si channel waveguide. To reduce the
overall footprint, a donut rather than a ring is used, thus the electrode for Si Ohmic contact
can be positioned at the center of the donut and the donut forms a standard MOS capacitor
(the other electrode is the Cu cap).
The cylindrical electrode for Si Ohmic contact has radius of r0. The outer radius of the Si
donut is R and the inner radius is (R WP), where WP is the width of Si core of the curved
hybrid plasmonic waveguide. The separation between the resonator and the bus waveguide is
gap. The Si height is H, the slab thickness in the Si donut is tslab, and the TiO2 thickness is
tox. The Cu-cap thickness is set to be much larger than the penetration depth of the SPP mode
in the metal (~26 nm). Because the plasmonic mode can only be excited by the electric field
of optical mode perpendicular to the metal/dielectric interface, the proposed modulator is
valid only for the transverse magnetic (TM)-polarized light.

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Cu cap
Cu

Al

USG-SiO2
Cu
TiO2 tox

r0
Si
Light input

gap

Through

Cu
r0

gap

n-Si
buried SiO2

R
tslab

Wox
WP H

substrate

(a)

(b)

Fig. 1. (a) Top view, and (b) cross-sectional view of the proposed Si plasmonic resonator
modulator, the bus waveguide is a conventional single-mode Si channel waveguide and the
resonator is a Cu-TiO2-Si hybrid plasmonic donut with two electrodes located at the Cu cap
and center-donut, respectively. The structural parameters are also indicated.

The modulators are fabricated on silicon-on-insulator wafers. The Si pattern of the bus
and donut waveguides are defined by partially dry etching of Si down to tslab using a thin SiO2
layer as the etching mask, following by dry etching of the remaining Si down to the buried
SiO2 using both SiO2 and photo-resistor as the etching mask. Using this etching method, there
is no misalignment issue between the inner and outer rings of the donut. After Si patterning, a
thick SiO2 is deposited and a ring-shaped window is opened to expose the surface of the Si
core. There exists possible misalignment between the SiO2 window and the beneath Si core
due to fabrication imperfection. Here, the SiO2 window (hence the width of the TiO2/Cu cap,
Wox) is intentionally designed to be larger than the beneath Si core by WP in each side, thus
Wox = WP + 2WP. TiO2 is then deposited on the Si core through the windows, followed by
Cu deposition and Cu chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) to remove TiO2 and Cu outside
the windows. The structural parameters are initially chosen based on our experience [23], as
listed in Table 1. Then, one of these parameters is varied while the others keep the same to
investigate its effect on the whole performance.
Table 1. The initial parameter setting of the plasmonic EO modulator
Radius, R

1.5 m

Si height, H

220 nm

Si slab height, tslab

50 nm

Si core width, WP

200 nm

TiO2 thickness, tox

50 nm

SiO2 window wider than the Si core in each side, WP

50 nm

Si bus waveguide width, WSi

400 nm

Separation between the donut and the bus waveguide, gap

10 nm

Radius of the middle Cu cylinder, r0

0.5 m

Doping in the Si donut, ND

n-type, 5 1018 cm3

Doping in the center of the donut for Ohmic contact

2 1020 cm3

The refractive indices of Si, SiO2, TiO2, and Cu depend both on wavelength and
temperature. For simplification, the indices as well as the TO coefficients at 1550-nm
wavelength and room temperature (RT) are used here, as listed in Table 2. The validity of
these optical parameters has been verified as the calculated propagation losses of plasmonic

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waveguides agree well with the experimental results measured at 1550-nm wavelength and
RT [23]. Be noted that the quantitative results in this paper are accurate only near 1550-nm
wavelengths and room temperature.
Table 2. Optical parameters of Si, SiO2, TiO2, and Cu at 1550-nm and RT
Si
SiO2
TiO2 [21]
Cu [24]

Real part of index, n

3.455
1.445
2.2
0.282

dn/dT (K1)
1.86 104
0.1 104
1.8 104
4.1 104

dk/dT (K1)
0
0
0
4.3 104

Imaginary part of index, k

0
0
0
11.05

3. Thermo-optic simulations
The effective modal indices of the curved Cu-TiO2-Si HPWs are calculated using the
eigenmode expansive (EME) method [25]. The Si core has an asymmetric rib structure to
mimic the donut resonator shown in Fig. 1(b). The electrical field intensity distribution of
1550-nm fundamental TM mode in the curved HPW with parameters as listed in Table 1 is
depicted in Fig. 2(a), showing that the electric field is enhanced in the TiO2 layer as well as
the Si core just beneath the TiO2 layer. The lateral confinement is well provided by the Si
core as the extended TiO2 region (i.e., over the Si core region laterally) contains weak electric
field. The effective modal index is calculated to be 2.275 + i0.00577, corresponding to a
propagation loss of 0.203 dB/m, which is close to the experimental result [23]. The ratios of
optical intensity in the TiO2 layer, the Si rib, the Si slab, and the surrounding SiO2 cladding
layer are 41.3%, 42.0%, 0.04%, and 16.7%, respectively. As expected, the thin Si slab has
negligible effect on the optical mode.
-3

TiO2

Si

SiO2

(a)

Real part of effective modal index, neff

Cu

2.522

tox=10nm

9.8

2.520

9.6

2.518

9.4

2.516

9.2

2.278

6.2

tox=50nm

2.276

6.0

2.274

5.8

2.272

5.6

2.270

(b)

-20

-15

-10

-5

0
RT

10

15

20

Temperature deviated from RT (C)

5.4

Imaginary part of effective modal index, keff

x10
10.0

2.524

Fig. 2. (a) Electric intensity distribution of the fundamental TM mode at 1550 nm in the curved
Cu-TiO2-Si HPW with structural parameters as listed in Table 1; (b) The real part (neff) and
imaginary part (keff) of the effective modal index of two curved HPWs as a function of
temperature, the TiO2 thicknesses of these two HPWs are 10 and 50 nm, respectively.

The real (neff) and imaginary part (keff) of effective modal indices are plotted in Fig. 2(b)
as a function of temperature in the range of 20C deviated from RT for two curved HPWs
which have TiO2 thicknesses tox of 10 nm and 50 nm, respectively. Both neff and keff depend
on temperature almost linearly. Thus, TO coefficients of the effective modal index (i.e.,
dneff/dT and dkeff/dT) can be deduced from only two temperature points. neff determines the
resonant wavelengths (r) and keff determines the extinction ratio (ER) of WRRs [26]. Since
dkeff/dT is relatively small for our HPWs, e.g., ~1.5 105 K1 for the 10-nm-TiO2 HPW and
~8.0 106 K1 for the 50-nm-TiO2 HPW, as read from Fig. 2(b), a WRR can be claimed to
be athermal if its dneff/dT is zero even its dkeff/dT is not zero.

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Figure 3 plots dneff/dT versus tox for curved Cu-TiO2-Si HPWs. As expected, dneff/dT
decreases monotonically with tox increasing because the ratio of optical intensity in the TiO2
layer increases. However, the slope of the dneff/dT~tox curves decreases with tox increasing.
This observation can be explained by the fact that the hybrid mode shown in Fig. 2(a) is a
superposition of a pure SPP mode located at the Cu/TiO2 interface (i.e., waveguide without
the Si core) and a pure optical mode located at the Si core (i.e., waveguide without the metal).
The hybrid mode becomes more optical-like when tox increasing [27]. In the extreme case
when tox is sufficiently larger (e.g., > ~200 nm), it behaves as a pure optical mode as the
conventional Si waveguide with TiO2 behaving as a cladding layer, thus dneff/dT will be
independent on tox. One sees from Fig. 3 that the dneff/dT~tox curve depends on the Si core
width WP weakly, while depends on the Si height H strongly. The critical tox at which dneff/dT
= 0 (i.e., athermal point) depends on WP weakly, while increases with H increasing.
Electrically, a thin gate dielectric is preferred to reduce the driving voltage. Optically, the
height of the Si waveguide should be thick enough for vertical optical confinement. To
balance the electric and optical requirements, our modulator is set to be H = 160 nm and tox =
50 nm. It is athermal as read from Fig. 3(b).
25

25

WP=100nm

20

WP=300nm

15

dneff/dT (10 /C)

10

-5

-5

dneff/dT (10 /C)

15

5
0
-5
-10

H=340nm
H=280nm
H=220nm
H=160nm

20

WP=200nm

10
5
0
-5

(a)

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

TiO2 thickness, tox (nm)

90 100

-10

(b)

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90 100

TiO2 thickness, tox (nm)

Fig. 3. The dneff/dT value of curved Cu-TiO2-Si HPW as a function of the TiO2 thickness for
(a) HPWs with H = 220 nm and WP of 100, 200, and 300 nm respectively, and (b) HPWs with
WP = 200 nm and H of 340, 280, 220, and 160 nm respectively. The other structural parameters
are as listed in Table 1. The athermal point is defined when dneff/dT = 0.

4. Electrical simulations
A semiconductor device simulation software MEDICI is used to obtain the two-dimensional
(2D) dynamic free carrier distribution in the MOS capacitor at different biases, as in the case
of conventional Si MOS modulators [28]. The dielectric constant of TiO2 is set to 80, which is
reachable for a high-quality TiO2 film [22]. The Si core of the resonator is n-type doped with
concentration (ND) of 5 1018 cm3 in the rib and slab region and 2 1020 cm3 in the contact
region for good Ohmic contact. Auger recombination, Shockley-Hall-Read recombination,
surface recombination, Fermi-Dirac statics, and the Modified Local Density Approximation
(MLDA) method in the MEDICI are included to account for the heavy doping and the
quantum confinement effect on the carrier concentration near the TiO2/Si interface [29]. The
2D free carrier distribution in the MOS capacitor under 5-V bias is shown in Fig. 4(a). The
accumulated electrons are located near the TiO2/Si interface. To see the 2D distribution more
clearly, the figure near the interface is enlarged, as shown in Fig. 4(b). We can see that the
electron concentration contours are almost in parallel with the TiO2/Si interface. Therefore,
the 2D distribution of free electron distribution N(x,y) can be simplified by a one-dimensional

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(1D) distribution N(y). Figure 4(c) plots 1D electron distributions along y-axis for the CuTiO2-Si MOS capacitor under different biases ranging from 1 V to 8 V. At the 1 V bias, the
electrons are depleted from the interface. The depletion width Wdep ( N D 0.5 ) is ~16.3 nm
when ND = 5 1018 cm3. With the gate voltage increasing, the electrons are accumulated at
the interface, maximizing at a short distance (~0.3-0.5 nm) away from the interface due to the
quantum mechanical effect and then decreasing to ND quickly with the distance from the
interface increasing. The free-electron distribution approaches to the interface more closely
when V increases. These results agree well with the experimental observation [30]. As a first
approximation, the electron distribution is approximated by a step function to define an
accumulation layer (AcL) which has width of tAcL and average concentration of NAcL as:
N AcL =

0 d
e tox t AcL

(V VFB ) =

0 d
e t AcL

(1)

Ed .

where 0 is the vacuum permittivity, d is the dielectric constant of the gate dielectric, e is
electronic charge, VFB is the flat-band voltage, and Ed is the electric field in the gate dielectric.
Here, we simply assume tAcL = 1nm. At large V, tAcL will be smaller than 1 nm and NAcL will
be larger than that predicted from Eq. (1). The achievable NAcL depends on the breakdown
field of the gate dielectric, and it can be larger than 1020 cm3 for modern CMOS devices.
V
TiO2
SiO2

Metal

51018 cm-3 n-Si

at V = 5V

5.01019
3.21019
2.01019
1.31019
7.91018
5.01018

(b)

21

8V
6V

tAcL
Cu

4V

-3

TiO2
3.21020
1.31020

10

Electron concentration (cm )

(a)

21020 cm-3 n-Si

3V
10

20

10

19

10

18

10

17

10

16

50nm TiO2, =80

18

-3

y 510 cm n-Si

2V
1V

0.0

(c)

Wdep

0V
-1V
0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

10

20

30

Distance from the TiO2/Si interface, y (nm)

Fig. 4. (a) Two-dimensional electron distribution of Cu-TiO2-Si MOS capacitor under 5-V
bias. Free electrons are accumulated near the TiO2/Si interface. (b) Electron concentration
contour near the TiO2/Si interface, different color represents different concentration. (c) Onedimensional electron distribution along y-axis of Cu-TiO2-Si capacitor as shown schematically
in the inset under different biases. The depletion width Wdep and the accumulation layer
thickness tAcL are also indicated.

For transient state simulations, the gate voltage V is increased from 0 to 8 V with the ramp
time of the gate voltage of 10 fs. The free electron concentration in the 1-nm AcL is plotted in
Fig. 5 as a function of time. Rise time (tr) of the electron concentration is defined as the time
for the electron concentration to increase from 10% to 90%, and fall time (tf) is defined as the
time for the electron concentration to drop from 90% to 10%. In the case of Si n+-contact just

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below the electrode, as shown in Fig. 4(a), the sum of these times (s = tr + tf) is ~29 ps. The
modulation speed estimated from the inverse of s is ~34 GHz. The speed can be improved by
shortening the distance between the accumulation layer and the n+ contact. In the case that the
n+ contact in the Si slab is extended to the Si rib, both tr and tf decrease, as shown by the dash
curve in Fig. 5. s is read to ~9.3 ps for this MOS capacitor, which corresponds to a ~107GHz modulation speed. However, the propagation loss of the curved HPW will increase from
0.27 dB/m to 0.31 dB/m when the doping level in the Si slab is increased from 5 1018
cm3 to 2 1020 cm3 (while keeping the doping level in the Si rib to be 5 1018 cm3). To
balance the propagation loss and the speed, the n+ doping may be extended to a certain
location between the Si rib and the electrode.
The proposed EO modulator is a MOS capacitor working between the depletion and
accumulation states. The switching energy Es per bit of the MOS modulator can be roughly
estimated as:
1
1
Es = CdepVdep 2 + CaccuVaccu 2 .
2
2

(2)

where Cdep and Caccu are capacitances under the depletion and accumulation states
respectively. Because Cdep is smaller than Caccu and Vdep is smaller than Vaccu, Es is mainly
determined by the second term of Eq. (2), namely the accumulation state. Caccu can be
t
approximated to the gate oxide capacitance as Caccu A ox , where A is the active area.
0 d
For the modulator with structural parameters as listed in Table 1, A is 1.76 m2 and Caccu is
~25 fF. If the driving voltage is 6 V, Es is estimated to be ~0.45 pJ.
10

21

20

4
+

10

n -contact just below

the electrode: s=29ps

19

n -contact extended
to the Si rib: s=9.3ps
10

Gate voltage (V)

10

-3

NAcL(cm )

18

10

-12

-11

10

10

-10

10

-9

10

-12

10

-11

10

-10

10

-9

Time (s)
Fig. 5. (a) The transient response of the electron concentration in the 1-nm-thick AcL of the
Cu-TiO2-Si MOS capacitor at the gate voltage variation between 0 and 8 V. Rise and fall time
are defined as 10% to 90% time period. The solid curve is for a MOS capacitor with n+-contact
just below the electrode as shown in Fig. 4(a) and the dash curve is for a MOS capacitor with
the n+-contact extended to the Si rib.

5. Electro-optic simulations
The modification of Si reflective index (nSi + ikSi) at 1550 nm depends on the free carrier
concentration (Ne for electrons and Nh for holes) almost linearly as:

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0.8
n = 8.8 1022 N e + 8.5 1018 ( N h ) ,

18
18
= 8.5 10 N e + 6 10 N h .

(3)

However, when the free carrier concentration becomes very large, e.g., > ~1020 cm3, n
and will deviate significantly from the above linear dependence. Instead, the well-known
Drude model can be used to estimate Si complex permittivity () and index at this region [31]:

( ) = ( nSi + k Si i ) =
2

N D e 2 / ( 0 m* )
.
2 (1 + i / ( ) )

(4)

where ( = 11.7) is the Si static permittivity, m* ( = 0.272 m0) is the electron effective mass,
and is the electron relaxation time. The calculated nSi and kSi are plotted in Fig. 6(a) as a
function of ND at = 1550 nm ( = 1.2 1015 s1).
0.8

0.024

0.000

at =1550nm
2.5
2.0
0.4
1.5
1.0

0.2

0.5
0.0

(a)

Electron concentration, NAcL

0.0
9 10

8
20
-3
(10 cm )

neff modification, neff-neff(dep)

0.6

Imaginary part of Si index, kSi

Real part of Si index, nSi

3.0

0.020
-0.004
0.016
-0.008

WP=100nm
WP=200nm

-0.012

0.012

WP=300nm
0.008

-0.016
0.004
-0.020

n nd
tio
a
ple lat-b
e
f
D

(b)

keff modification, keff-keff(dep)

3.5

0.000
1

7
20

10

-3

NAcL in 1-nm AcL (10 cm )

Fig. 6. (a) The real part (nSi) and imaginary part (kSi) of Si refractive index as a function of free
electron concentration in the range of 1 102010 1020 cm3, calculated based on the Drude
model. (b) Modification of the calculated effective modal index of the curved Cu-TiO2-Si
HPWs as a function of NAcL in the 1-nm AcL (compared with that in the depletion state).

The effective modal index is calculated as a function of NAcL in the 1-nm AcL for curved
Cu-TiO2-Si HPWs with WP of 100, 200, and 300 nm, respectively (the Si height H is 160 nm
and the other parameters are as listed in Table 1). The results are shown in Fig. 6(b). The
index of the 5 1018 cm3-doped Si is set to 3.4506 + i0.00123 based on Eq. (3) and the index
of the depleted Si is 3.455. We can see that the real part of effective modal index decreases
and the imaginary part increases almost exponentially with NAcL increasing, which can be
explained by the increase of optical modal confinement in the 1-nm AcL. For example, Fig.
7(a) shows electric field (|Ey|) 2D distribution of fundamental TM mode in the curved CuTiO2-Si HPW with NAcL = 1 1020 cm3. To see the field distribution in the 1-nm-thick AcL
more clearly, normalized |Ey| 1D distributions along the y-axis at x = 0, shown as the dash
line in Fig. 7(a), are plotted in Fig. 7(b) for HPWs with NAcL = 1 1020 cm3 and 8 1020
cm3 respectively. In the case of NAcL = 8 1020 cm3, the electric field in the 1-nm AcL is
dramatically enhanced. Because the continuity of electric displacement normal to the
interfaces makes Ey is inversely proportional to the permittivity roughly, the Si permittivity
becomes smaller than the permittivity of TiO2 when NAcL is larger than ~6 1020 cm3 as read
from 6(a), which results in dramatic enhancement of optical field in this thin layer. To see this
point more clearly, Fig. 7(c) plots the optical intensity ratio in the 1-nm AcL, which is defined
as the optical power contained in this region over the total optical power, as a function of
NAcL. From Figs. 6(c) and 7(c), one sees that the modulation efficiency is WP dependent. The
HPW with 100-nm WP has smaller modulation efficiency than the HPWs with larger WPs

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while the HPW with 200-nm WP provides similar modulation efficiency as HPW with 300nm WP. This is because the lateral confinement is weak when WP is too small (e.g., < ~100
nm) while it becomes saturated when WP is large enough (e.g., > ~200 nm). On the other
hand, the modulator with smaller WP has a smaller active area, which means a faster
modulation speed. To balance the optical and electric performance, WP is set to be 200 nm for
our modulator.
Cu

TiO2

Si

Normalized electric field, Ey

y (nm)

(a)

-3

0.5

1-nm AcL
0.0
1.0
20

-3

NAcL=810 cm
0.5

0.0

(b)

-20 -10 0

10 20 30 40 50

100

1.6

SiO2
20

NAcL=110 cm

200

Distance along y at x = 0 (nm)

300

Intensity ratio in 1-nm AcL (%)

1.0

100nm
200nm
300nm

1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2

(c)

20

-3

NAcL in the 1-nm AcL (10 cm )

Fig. 7. (a) The electric field (|Ey|) distribution of the fundamental TM mode in the curved CuTiO2-Si HPW, (2) |Ey| distribution along y-axis at x = 0, as shown by the dash line in Fig. 7(a)
in the cases of NAcL = 1 1020 cm3 and 8 1020 cm3, respectively, and (c) Optical intensity
ratio in the 1-nm-thick AcL as a function of NAcL for HPWs with WP of 100, 200, and 300 nm,
respectively.

It has been experimentally demonstrated that the transmission spectrum of HPW-based

WRRs can in general be expressed as [18,19]:
T ( ) =

2 + t 2 2 t cos
.
1 + 2 t 2 2 t cos

(5)

where = ( 2 / ) ng 2 R is the phase change around the ring, 2 is the power loss factor per
roundtrip around the ring, t = t exp ( i ) is the self-coupling coefficient, and ng is the group
index. 2 at different states can be calculated from keff read from Fig. 6(b). ng in the depletion
state is calculated to ~3.782, close to the experimental result [19]. Because it is difficult to
calculate the ng value accurately, we simply assume that the free-carrier effect induced ng
modification is the same as the neff modification, namely ng = neff, thus ng at different states
and different NAcLs can also be read from Fig. 6(b). Since ng is larger than neff, this assumption
may underestimate the modification efficiency of our modulator. The self-coupling
coefficient t is related with the cross-coupling coefficient k as t 2 + k 2 = 1 . The coupling
between the bus waveguide and the resonator depends on the separation between them (gap)
and the effective modal index difference between the bus waveguide and the curved
plasmonic waveguide [26]. The |t| value can be varied in a large range from over-coupling (|t|
< ) to under-coupling (|t| > ), depending on the detailed structural parameters of WRRs
[19]. The relationship between the coupling strength and the WRRs structural parameters has
been well studied [26], and will not be studied in detail in this paper. Instead, we simply
assume |t| to a certain value and assume = 0 (i.e., no phase shift due to coupling). Figure
8(a) plots the calculated spectra of our modulator in the case of |t| = 0.8. Because is ~0.75 in
the depletion state, the resonator is slightly under-coupling with ER of ~18 dB. With NAcL
increasing, ng decreases and increases simultaneously, which leads to r blue-shift and ER
reduction as the resonator becomes more under-coupled. In contrast, for conventional Si
WRR modulators, only the shift of r occurs and ER is not changed because is almost
independent on the applied voltage. One can see from Fig. 8(a) that the EO induced
modulation (modulation depth) is enhanced in the region of wavelength larger than r due to
this additional modification, while in the region of wavelength smaller than r, the

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modulation depth is weakened. Figure 8(b) plots the calculated spectra in the case of overcoupling by assuming |t| = 0.5 which has ER of ~8 dB in the depletion state. With NAcL
increasing, the resonance wavelength is blue-shifted and the ER increases. ER becomes very
large when approaches to |t|. The modulation depth is enhanced in the region of wavelength
smaller than r and is weakened in the region of wavelength larger than r due to this
additional modification. It indicates that the performance of our plasmonic modulators
depends on |t| more sensitively than the conventional Si WRR modulators. Moreover,
because of the relatively large propagation loss of the plasmonic waveguide (hence the small
value) as compared with the conventional Si waveguide, our plasmonic modulators require
strong coupling (hence the small |t| value) between the bus waveguide and the resonator to
meet the critical coupling condition.
0

At undercoupling, |t|=0.8

0
-2

-2

-4
Depletion
Flat-band
Accumulation
20
-3
110 cm
20
-3
210 cm
20
-3
310 cm
20
-3
410 cm
20
-3
510 cm
20
-3
610 cm
20
-3
710 cm
20
-3
810 cm

-6
-8
-10
-12
-14
-16
-18
1520

1540

1560

1580

Wavelength (nm)

(a)

Transmission (dB)

Transmission (dB)

-4

1500

At overcoupling, |t|=0.5

1600

Depletion
Flat-band
Accumulation
20
-3
110 cm
20
-3
210 cm
20
-3
310 cm
20
-3
410 cm
20
-3
510 cm
20
-3
610 cm
20
-3
710 cm
20
-3
810 cm

-6
-8
-10
-12
-14
-16
-20
-30
-40
1500

(b)

1520

1540

1560

1580

1600

Wavelength (nm)

Fig. 8. Transmission spectra of the plasmonic donut modulator at depletion, flat-band, and
accumulation states with NAcL ranging from 1 1020 cm3 to 8 1020 cm3, calculated based on
Eq. (5). (a) At under-coupling with |t| = 0.8 and (b) At over-coupling with |t| = 0.5.

The simple calculation based on Eq. (5) represents an ideal condition of WRRs in which
many effects are ignored. To verify the results observed in Fig. 8, three-dimensional (3D)
full-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation is performed. To enhance the coupling
between the bus waveguide and the resonator, a race-track shaped resonator is used. The gap
between the bus waveguide and the resonator is set to 10 nm and the directional coupling
length is set to be 500 nm. The total footprint of the modulator inclusive electrodes is ~8.6
m2, and the active area A is ~1.96 m2. To minimize the simulation error during simulation
in different states, only the Si complex index in the 1-nm-thick AcL is changed as read from
Fig. 6(b), while all other settings including the grid size keep the same. Figure 9(a) plots the
transmission spectra for the modulator under accumulation states with NAcL = 1 1020 cm3 or
6 1020 cm3, which corresponds to a bias of 1.1 V or 6.8 V, respectively, according to Eq.
(1). In the case of NAcL = 1 1020 cm3, ER is ~9 dB near 1550 nm, which corresponds to =
~0.74 and |t| = ~0.85. When NAcL increases to 6 1020 cm3, the resonant waveguides are
blue-shifted by ~13.5 nm and ER is reduced to be ~2.5 dB because of the reduction of to
~0.67. At 1546 nm wavelength, the output power is modified from ~-10 dB to ~-2 dB by
increasing NAcL from 1 1020 to 6 1020 cm3. The optical power distributions in the
modulator with NAcL of 1 1020 and 6 1020 cm3 are shown in Figs. 9(b) and 9(c)
respectively, and dynamic light propagation through the modulator is shown by the attached
movie (Media 1). One sees that in the case of NAcL = 1 1020 cm3, the modulator is almost in
on-resonance as being close to |t|, which results in optical trap in the resonator and small

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output power of ~-10 dB. In the case of NAcL = 6 1020 cm3, the modulator is in off-resonator
as being larger than |t|, which results in large output power of ~-2 dB. Thus this modulator
operating at 1546 nm has modulation depth of ~8.0 dB and insertion loss of ~2 dB. The
relatively low insertion loss (as compared with other plasmonic modulators [15,16]) is
benefited from the conventional Si channel bus waveguide. As the abovementioned, both the
modulation depth and the insertion loss can be further improved by adjusting the coupling
between the bus waveguide and the resonator.
0

Transmission (dB)

-2
-4
-6
-8

-10
-12
1400

20

-3

20

-3

NAcL=110 cm
NAcL=610 cm
1450

1500

1550

1600

1650

1700

Wavelength (nm)

(a)
NAcL=11020cm-3

NAcL=61020cm-3

(b)

(c)

Fig. 9. (a) Transmission spectra of the plasmonic modulator under accumulation with NAcL of 1
1020 cm3 and 6 1020 cm3, obtained from FDTD simulation; (b) Media 1 the optical power
density in the modulator with 1 1020 cm3 NAcL at = 1546 nm, and (c) The optical power
distribution in the modulator with NAcL = 6 1020 cm3 at = 1546 nm. The output power is
modulated from ~-10 dB to ~-2 dB at this wavelength.

6. Conclusions
In summary, an ultracompact Si WRR modulators based on the recently developed Cuinsulator-Si HPW is proposed. The modulator is atheraml when TiO2 with a certain thickness
is used as the insulator. The EO modulation is achieved by free-electron accumulation near
the TiO2/Si interface. Significant modification of both the real and imaginary parts of
effective modal index of the curved Cu-TiO2-Si HPW can be obtained if NAcL is large enough
(e.g., > ~6 1020 cm3), which leads to the resonance wavelength blue-shift and the extinction
ratio variation simultaneously. The modulator provides a large modulation depth and a small
insertion loss after optimization of the coupling between the bus waveguide and the resonator.
The modulator offers high speed, up to ~100 GHz dependent on the doping scheme, and low
power consumption of ~0.45 pJ/bit owing to its ultracompact footprint. Moreover, the
resonator can be further scaled down to submicron radius and offers a relatively large
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fabrication tolerance. These promising performances combined with the fully CMOS
compatibility make the proposed modulator very attractive for dense Si EPICs.
Appendix
In this appendix, we discuss the further miniaturization of the ring radius and the fabrication
tolerance.
In the above analysis, the radius of the plasmonic resonator is set to R = 1.5 m. The
radius (hence the footprint of modulator) can be further reduced. Figure 10 plots the effective
modal index and the TO coefficient as a function of the bending radius for curved Cu-TiO2-Si
HPWs with different WPs. The real part of effective modal index decreases and the imaginary
part increases with R decreasing due to outward shift of the optical mode [20], especially for
the HPW with wider WP. A noticeable variation of the effective modal index occurs when R is
less than ~1.0 m for HPW with WP of ~200 nm. It indicates that the bending radius of our
modulator can be reduced to ~1.0 m without noticeable performance degradation. Moreover,
the thermo-optic property keeps almost unchanged for bending radius as small as 0.5 m, as
shown in Fig. 10(b).
-4

1.5

1.0

W P=
100 nm
200 nm
300 nm

-0.03

-0.04

-0.05

-0.06
0.50

0.75

(a)

1.00

1.25

1.50

Radius, R (m)

1.75

0
2.00

0.5

WP=
100nm
200nm
300nm

-5

-0.02

dneff/dT (10 /C)

-0.01

610

keff variation, keff(R)-keff(R=)

neff varaition, neff(R)-neff(R=)

0.00

0.0
-0.5
-1.0
-1.5
0.50

(b)

0.75

1.00

1.25

1.50

1.75

2.00

Radius, R (m)

Fig. 10. (a) The effective modal index versus radius of curved Cu-TiO2-Si plasmonic
waveguides with different WPs (compared with that of the corresponding straight plasmonic
waveguide, namely R = ), (b) the thermo-optic coefficient of the real part of effective modal
index dneff/dT versus radius.

The TiO2/Cu cap of the Cu-TiO2-Si waveguide is designed to be wider than the beneath Si
core by WP, as shown in the inset of Fig. 11(a). In literature, the metal/insulator width in the
metal-insulator-Si hybrid plasmonic waveguides is either infinite [18,19,27] or is the same as
the Si core [32]. Here, the effect of the width of the TiO2/Cu cap is studied. Figure 11 plots
the real and imaginary parts of effective modal index (compared to that with the infinite wide
TiO2/Cu cap, namely WP = ) as a function of WP for curved Cu-TiO2-Si HPWs with WP
of 100, 200, and 300 nm, respectively. With WP increasing, neff increases first and then
decreases slowing while the keff increases continuously. Nevertheless, the dependence of the
effective modal index on WP is weak, especially for HPWs with wider WP, in consistent with
the fact that a good lateral confinement can be provided by the beneath Si core in the CuTiO2-Si HPWs when WP is wide enough (> ~200 nm).
In fabrication, the central line of the TiO2/Cu cap may misalign from the central line of the
beneath Si core, as shown schematically in the inset of Fig. 12(a). In the case that the TiO2/Cu
cap is intentionally designed to be wider than the beneath Si core by 50 nm in each side, the
over-width in one side will be (50nm - WP) and that in the other side will be (50nm + WP)
if the misalignment is WP. Figure 12 plots the real and imaginary parts of effective modal
index (compared to that without misalignment, namely WP = 0) as a function of WP for

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0.05

0.04

-2

-4

0.03
0.02
0.01
0.00

Cu

-0.01

TiO2

100nm
200nm
300nm

-0.02
-0.03

WP

WP

WP

Si

-0.04
-0.05

keff variation, keff-keff(WP=) (10 )

neff variation, neff-neff(WP=)

curved Cu-TiO2-Si HPWs with WP of 100, 200, and 300 nm, respectively. Both the real and
imaginary parts of the modal index decrease with |WP| increasing. While in the WP range
from 10 nm to 20 nm, the variation of the effective modal index with WP is very small,
especially for HPWs with wider WP. It indicates that our EA modulator has a relatively large
misalignment tolerance of ~15 nm for the TiO2/Cu cap fabrication. It should be noted that
fabrication of the coupling region will have small tolerance, as the conventional Si WRR
modulators.

-6
-8
-10
-12
-14

100nm
200nm
300nm

-16
-18
-20

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

(a)

-4

(b)

WP (nm)

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

WP (nm)

Fig. 11. (a) The real part of effective modal index for curved Cu-TiO2-Si HPWs versus width
difference between the TiO2/Cu cap and the beneath Si core, WP, as shown schematically in
the inset, compared to that with the infinite wide TiO2/Cu cap, namely WP = , (b) The
imaginary part of effective modal index versus WP.
5

0.00

-5

100nm
200nm
300nm

-0.01
-0.02

Cu
TiO2

-0.03

WP

50nm-WP
-0.04
-0.05

50nm+WP

Si
-50 -40 -30 -20 -10

(a)

keff variation, keff-keff(WP'=0) (10 )

neff variation, neff-neff(WP'=0)

0.01

10 20 30 40 50

W P' (nm)

-5

-10

-15

100nm
200nm
300nm
-50 -40 -30 -20 -10

(b)

10 20 30 40 50

WP' (nm)

Fig. 12. (a) The real part of effective modal index for curved Cu-TiO2-Si plasmonic
waveguides versus the deviation of central line of the TiO2/Cu cap from the beneath Si core,
WP, as shown schematically in the inset, compared to that without the deviation, namely
WP = 0, (b) The imaginary part of effective modal index versus WP.

Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Science and Engineering Research Council of A*STAR
(Agency for Science, Technology and Research), Singapore Grant 092-154-0098.

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