Silicon-on-Insulator Modulator

Application ID: 148411


This tutorial demonstrates how to model a Silicon-on-Insulator (SoI) Modulator – a well-known optics device configuration that takes advantage of the free-carrier plasma dispersion effect and allows for the electrical control of the optical waveguide properties. The simulation couples the Semiconductor and Electromagnetic Waves, Frequency Domain interfaces, with the Soref–Bennett relations used to evaluate changes in carrier density and the corresponding variations in the complex-valued refractive index. As a result, alternations for the effective refractive index as well as the bias-dependent phase shift and attenuation of the device are calculated using the real part of the complex effective mode index.

This model example illustrates applications of this type that would nominally be built using the following products: