Thermo-optic modulator with ultra-high extinction ratio for low-loss silicon nitride integrated photonics

Dmitriy Serkin; Kirill Buzaverov; Aleksandr Baburin; Evgeny Sergeev; Sergey Avdeev; Evgeniy Lotkov; Sergey Bukatin; Ilya Stepanov; Aleksey Kramarenko; Ali Amiraslanov; Ilya Ryzhikov; Ilya Rodionov

arXiv · 2601.19732

Thermo-optic modulator with ultra-high extinction ratio for low-loss silicon nitride integrated photonics

Dmitriy Serkin·Kirill Buzaverov·Aleksandr Baburin·Evgeny Sergeev·Sergey Avdeev·Evgeniy Lotkov·Sergey Bukatin·Ilya Stepanov·Aleksey Kramarenko·Ali Amiraslanov·Ilya Ryzhikov·Ilya Rodionov

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Abstract

Extremely low-loss silicon nitride integrated circuits is a potential platform for a growing number of frontier applications in quantum technologies, high-performance and analog computing, nonlinear optics, light detection and ranging (LiDAR), and biotechnologies. However, efficient optical modulation with a wide frequency response, high contrast, low power and scalable manufacturing remains one of the key challenges for silicon nitride integrated photonics. Here, we propose an integrated thermo-optic phase shifter with isolation trenches operating in the C-band. The fabricated thermo-optic modulator capable to achieve a $\pi$-phase shift shift at a power consumption of 65 mW, bandwidth of 12 kHz, and extinction ratio (ER) over 80 dB. Moreover, we systematically demonstrate its compatibility with low-loss silicon nitride photonic integrated circuits with microring resonators exibiting an average quality factor more than $5.9 \times 10^{6}$, which correspond to propagation loss of 0.058 dB/cm.

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Dmitriy Serkin, Kirill Buzaverov, Aleksandr Baburin, Evgeny Sergeev, Sergey Avdeev, Evgeniy Lotkov, Sergey Bukatin, Ilya Stepanov, Aleksey Kramarenko, Ali Amiraslanov, Ilya Ryzhikov, Ilya Rodionov. 2026-01-27. Thermo-optic modulator with ultra-high extinction ratio for low-loss silicon nitride integrated photonics. https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.19732

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