Integrated thermal stabilization of a microring modulator.

A defect-enhanced silicon photodiode and heater are integrated with and used to thermally stabilize a microring modulator. These optoelectronic components are interfaced with external control circuitry to create a closed-looped feedback system for thermally stabilizing the microring modulator. The thermal stabilization system enables the microring modulator to provide error-free 5-Gb/s modulation while being subjected to thermal fluctuations that would normally render it inoperable.

Thermal stabilization of a microring modulator using feedback control.

We describe and demonstrate the use of a feedback control system to thermally stabilize a silicon microring modulator subjected to a thermally volatile environment. Furthermore, we establish power monitoring as an effective and appropriate mechanism to infer the temperature drift of a microring modulator. Our demonstration shows that a high-performance silicon microring-based device, normally inoperable in thermally volatile environments, can maintain error-free performance when a feedback control system is implemented.

Error-free transmission of microring-modulated BPSK.

We demonstrate the generation of error-free binary-phase-shift-keyed (BPSK) data at 5 Gb/s using a silicon microring modulator. The microring-modulated BPSK signal is propagated at fiber lengths up to 80 km, maintaining error-free performance, while demonstrating resilience to chromatic dispersion. Bit-error-rate measurements and eye diagrams show near equivalent performance of a microring-based BPSK modulator as compared to commercial LiNbO3 phase modulators.

Wavelength conversion and unicast of 10-Gb/s data spanning up to 700 nm using a silicon nanowaveguide.

We report extremely large probe-idler separation wavelength conversion (545 nm) and unicast (700 nm) of 10-Gb/s data signals using a dispersion-engineered silicon nanowaveguide. Dispersion-engineered phase matching in the device provides a continuous four-wave-mixing efficiency 3-dB bandwidth exceeding 800 nm. We report the first data validation of wavelength conversion (data modulated probe) and unicast (data modulated pump) of 10-Gb/s data with probe-idler separations spanning 60 nm up to 700 nm accompanied with sensitivity gain in a single device. These demonstrations further validate the silicon platform as a highly broadband flexible platform for nonlinear all-optical data manipulation.