Planar 1.3 and 1.55 μm InGaAs(P)/InP electroabsorption waveguide modulators using oxygen ion mixing and the photoelastic effect

Efficient 1.3 and 1.55 μm InP‐based electroabsorption waveguide modulators with planar device structures have been demonstrated. Elevated temperature oxygen ion implantation and/or the photoelastic effect induced by W metal stressor stripes deposited on the semiconductor surface have been used to produce these self‐aligned planar guided‐wave devices. The oxygen ion mixing process has been used to simultaneously achieve compositional disordering and electrical isolation of superlattice material while the photoelastic effect has been used to improve the lateral mode confinement. A 1.3 μm Franz–Keldysh modulator with a ≳10 dB extinction ratio at 2 V and a 1.55 μm device with a ≳10 dB extinction ratio at 7 V are reported. These single growth step planar processing techniques have also been used to fabricate relatively low‐loss (<4 dB/cm) double heterostructure InGaAs(P)/InP single‐mode optical waveguides which demonstrate their usefulness in developing InP‐based photonic integrated circuits.