Patent ID: 7983517

Claim:
An optical ring resonator apparatus, comprising: a substrate; at least one optical waveguide supported on the substrate; an optical ring resonator located adjacent to each optical waveguide to couple light therebetween at a resonant frequency of the optical ring resonator, with the optical ring resonator having a hard outer sidewall which is curved to provide a closed-loop optical path for the light, and with the optical ring resonator having regions of n-type doping and p-type doping therein to form a semiconductor junction to vary the resonant frequency in response to a bias voltage applied across the semiconductor junction; and a pair of electrical contacts located within the optical ring resonator and electrically connected to the regions of the n-type doping and the p-type doping to provide the bias voltage across the semiconductor junction, the semiconductor junction comprises a horizontal semiconductor junction with the regions of n-type doping and p-type doping being located side-by-side in a circumferential direction around the optical ring resonator.