Ultra-Efficient Modulators Based on Chalcogenide and Graphene Materials for AI Hyperscalers

Driven by the global growth in AI services, the demand for efficient hardware is at an all-time high in the race for continued performance scaling of hyperscale data centers. Integrated photonics devices have emerged as a promising alternative for reducing energy consumption. We report an optical modulator design that incorporates chalcogenide and graphene materials to achieve the minimal power consumption per bit during high-speed operation. The device design and its energy consumption performance are presented. Our results pave the way for ultra-efficient modulators revealing operations at high-speed modulation bandwidth up to 104 GHz whilst reducing energy consumption to 52.3 fJ/bit.