Slotted electro-optic ring resonator as a tunable optical power splitter

摘要

In this letter, we present a novel optical power splitter having an arbitrary split-ratio that can be tuned over a wide rangeby employing relatively low voltage levels. It is based on a slotted ring resonator. A 120 nm electro-optic polymer-filledslot is created throughout the circumference of the ring. The hybrid ring resonator is made to work between the full andoff resonance states, allowing it to work as a power splitter. This is done by changing the refractive index of the electroopticpolymer inside the slot by the application of an external electric field. The splitter combines the electro-opticfunctionality of the polymer with the high index contrast of the silicon, resulting in a low tuning voltage power splitter.Over a small voltage range of 0-1 V, it is possible to change the split-ratio of this splitter from 0.031-16.738, making it10 times better than other competing designs. In addition, it takes less than 500 ps to reconfigure the splitter.