A Light‐Controlled Coplanar Waveguide Radio‐Frequency Attenuator With Ultra‐Low Bias

Yutian Zhang; Martin J. Cryan

doi:10.1049/ell2.70482

A Light‐Controlled Coplanar Waveguide Radio‐Frequency Attenuator With Ultra‐Low Bias

Yutian Zhang
, Martin J. Cryan^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

Abstract

A novel light-controlled coplanar waveguide (CPW) RF attenuator is proposed. By directly metalizing a thin (<100 um) silicon substrate to form a circular meandered CPW transmission line, our device achieves an isolation/insertion-loss ratio greater than 33 dB from 2 to 18 GHz and only requires an optical bias and an electrical bias of 7 and 17.8 mW, respectively. Moreover, the proposed architecture is compatible with the thin-silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology which may pave the way for the large-scale integration of high-performance light-controlled and CMOS devices for demanding RF applications.

Original language	English
Article number	e70482
Number of pages	4
Journal	Electronics Letters
Volume	61
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1049/ell2.70482
Publication status	Published - 17 Nov 2025

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© 2025 The Author(s). Electronics Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institution of Engineering and Technology.

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title = "A Light‐Controlled Coplanar Waveguide Radio‐Frequency Attenuator With Ultra‐Low Bias",

abstract = "A novel light-controlled coplanar waveguide (CPW) RF attenuator is proposed. By directly metalizing a thin (<100 um) silicon substrate to form a circular meandered CPW transmission line, our device achieves an isolation/insertion-loss ratio greater than 33 dB from 2 to 18 GHz and only requires an optical bias and an electrical bias of 7 and 17.8 mW, respectively. Moreover, the proposed architecture is compatible with the thin-silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology which may pave the way for the large-scale integration of high-performance light-controlled and CMOS devices for demanding RF applications.",

author = "Yutian Zhang and Cryan, \{Martin J.\}",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2025 The Author(s). Electronics Letters published by John Wiley \& Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institution of Engineering and Technology.",

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doi = "10.1049/ell2.70482",

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AU - Zhang, Yutian

AU - Cryan, Martin J.

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N2 - A novel light-controlled coplanar waveguide (CPW) RF attenuator is proposed. By directly metalizing a thin (<100 um) silicon substrate to form a circular meandered CPW transmission line, our device achieves an isolation/insertion-loss ratio greater than 33 dB from 2 to 18 GHz and only requires an optical bias and an electrical bias of 7 and 17.8 mW, respectively. Moreover, the proposed architecture is compatible with the thin-silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology which may pave the way for the large-scale integration of high-performance light-controlled and CMOS devices for demanding RF applications.

AB - A novel light-controlled coplanar waveguide (CPW) RF attenuator is proposed. By directly metalizing a thin (<100 um) silicon substrate to form a circular meandered CPW transmission line, our device achieves an isolation/insertion-loss ratio greater than 33 dB from 2 to 18 GHz and only requires an optical bias and an electrical bias of 7 and 17.8 mW, respectively. Moreover, the proposed architecture is compatible with the thin-silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology which may pave the way for the large-scale integration of high-performance light-controlled and CMOS devices for demanding RF applications.

U2 - 10.1049/ell2.70482

DO - 10.1049/ell2.70482

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

SN - 0013-5194

VL - 61

JO - Electronics Letters

JF - Electronics Letters

IS - 1

M1 - e70482

ER -

A Light‐Controlled Coplanar Waveguide Radio‐Frequency Attenuator With Ultra‐Low Bias

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