Energy-Efficient 100-Gbps PAM Transmissions Using a 1.3-µm Membrane DML-on-Silicon

70-Gbps NRZ, 112-Gbps PAM-4, and 100-Gbps PAM-8 are demonstrated by directly-modulating an O-band membrane laser-on-silicon, over a 2-km single-mode fiber link under low-complexity nonlinear equalization. The laser was driven at a bias of only 11.5-mA with power consumption ~7x times lower than conventional DMLs.