Mitigation of carrier induced optical bistability in silicon ring resonators

Abstract: We present a detailed study of electrical and optical generated free carrier on the spectral characteristics of a silicon microring modulator. The spectral distortion generated due to thermal and free carriers is presented, and the mechanism for mitigation is also presented. We observed that two-photon induced nonlinearity could be addressed by operating the modulator at suitable bias points. Furthermore, by applying small-signal drive the spectral distortion can be restored. We also present the effect of optical power and drive signal limit on the spectral characteristics. The study allows one to identify suitable device performance and operating conditions to utilize silicon ring modulator for optical signal processing.