Open AccessOptimization of metallic microheaters for high-speed reconfigurable silicon photonics
Author(s) -
Amir H. Atabaki,
Ehsan Shah Hosseini,
Ali A. Eftekhar,
Siva Yegnanarayanan,
Ali Adibi
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.18.018312
Subject(s) - microheater , control reconfiguration , materials science , photonics , silicon photonics , silicon , optoelectronics , optics , microsecond , liquid crystal on silicon , excitation , electronic engineering , computer science , electrical engineering , physics , engineering , fabrication , embedded system , medicine , alternative medicine , pathology , liquid crystal
The strong thermooptic effect in silicon enables low-power and low-loss reconfiguration of large-scale silicon photonics. Thermal reconfiguration through the integration of metallic microheaters has been one of the more widely used reconfiguration techniques in silicon photonics. In this paper, structural and material optimizations are carried out through heat transport modeling to improve the reconfiguration speed of such devices, and the results are experimentally verified. Around 4 micros reconfiguration time are shown for the optimized structures. Moreover, sub-microsecond reconfiguration time is experimentally demonstrated through the pulsed excitation of the microheaters. The limitation of this pulsed excitation scheme is also discussed through an accurate system-level model developed for the microheater response.