Microcomb-driven silicon photonic systems.

Microcombs have sparked a surge of applications over the past decade, ranging from optical communications to metrology1-4. Despite their diverse deployment, most microcomb-based systems rely on a large amount of bulky elements and equipment to fulfil their desired functions, which is complicated, expensive and power consuming. By contrast, foundry-based silicon photonics (SiPh) has had remarkable success in providing versatile functionality in a scalable and low-cost manner5-7, but its available chip-based light sources lack the capacity for parallelization, which limits the scope of SiPh applications. Here we combine these two technologies by using a power-efficient and operationally simple aluminium-gallium-arsenide-on-insulator microcomb source to drive complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor SiPh engines. We present two important chip-scale photonic systems for optical data transmission and microwave photonics, respectively. A microcomb-based integrated photonic data link is demonstrated, based on a pulse-amplitude four-level modulation scheme with a two-terabit-per-second aggregate rate, and a highly reconfigurable microwave photonic filter with a high level of integration is constructed using a time-stretch approach. Such synergy of a microcomb and SiPh integrated components is an essential step towards the next generation of fully integrated photonic systems.

Linearity of a silicon-based graphene electro-absorption modulator.

A silicon-based graphene modulator, holding the advantages of high modulation efficiency, high speed, and being ultra-compact, is regarded as a promising candidate for next-generation communication networks. Although the properties involved for optical communications have been widely studied, very few works evaluate the performance required for the microwave scenarios. Here, for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, the linearity of silicon-based graphene electro-absorption modulator (EAM) is analyzed and experimentally characterized through spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) with 82.5 dB·Hz1/2 and 100.3 dB·Hz2/3. Further calculations reveal that a higher SFDR value could be achieved through optimizing the bias voltage. Variations of capacitor structural parameters have little influence on the linearity. Such performance leads to the first, to the best of our knowledge, demonstration of a Gbps-level pulse-amplitude 4-level modulation scheme (PAM-4) eye diagram in a silicon-based graphene modulator.

On-chip high-efficiency wavelength multicasting of PAM3/PAM4 signals using low-loss AlGaAs-on-insulator nanowaveguides.

Nonlinear optics-based optical signal processing (OSP) could potentially increase network flexibility because of its transparency, tunability, and large bandwidth. A low-loss, high nonlinearity, and compact integrated material platform is always the pursuit of OSP. In this Letter, a high-efficiency, one-to-six wavelength multicasting of 10 Gbaud pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM3/PAM4) signals using a 6 cm long Al0.2Ga0.8As-on-insulator nanowaveguide is experimentally demonstrated for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. The low-loss, combined with the high nonlinear coefficient of the AlGaAsOI platform, enables us to achieve -11.2dB average conversion efficiency clear eye diagrams and <2.1dB power penalty at KP4-forward error correction threshold (2.4×10-4) for all the output PAM3/PAM4 multicasting channels. This result points to a new generation of nonlinear OSP photonic integrated circuits.

Numerical investigation of the linearity of graphene-based silicon waveguide modulator.

We investigated the linearity of graphene-based silicon waveguide modulators used in microwave photonics links. A theoretical model was developed to systematically analyze the linearity performance for the second-order harmonic distortions (SHD2) and the third-order intermodulation distortions (IMD3). For the graphene-based silicon waveguide electro-absorption (EA) modulator, the distortions were suppressed through bias optimization. As a result, the maximal spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) obtained for SHD2 and IMD3 were 105.9 dB ·Hz1/2 and 117.8 dB·Hz2/3, respectively. For the graphene-based silicon waveguide electro-refraction (ER) phase modulator, SHD2 was fully eliminated through the push-pull modulation and quadrature biasing, while the remaining IMD3 term was linearized by the proper adjustment of the bias voltage and phase shifter length to obtain an ultrahigh SFDR of 130 dB ·Hz2/3. Moreover, the graphene-based silicon waveguide ER modulator is more compact and tolerant to bias errors than a pure silicon modulator. These results reveal that the graphene-based silicon waveguide EA and ER modulators can be potentially utilized in integrated microwave photonics.

Versatile photonic molecule switch in multimode microresonators.

Harnessing optical supermode interaction to construct artificial photonic molecules has uncovered a series of fundamental optical phenomena analogous to atomic physics. Previously, the distinct energy levels and interactions in such two-level systems were provided by coupled microresonators. The reconfigurability is limited, as they often require delicate external field stimuli or mechanically altering the geometric factors. These highly specific approaches also limit potential applications. Here, we propose a versatile on-chip photonic molecule in a multimode microring, utilizing a flexible regulation methodology to dynamically control the existence and interaction strength of spatial modes. The transition between single/multi-mode states enables the "switched-off/on" functionality of the photonic molecule, supporting wider generalized applications scenarios. In particular, "switched-on" state shows flexible and multidimensional mode splitting control in aspects of both coupling strength and phase difference, equivalent to the a.c. and d.c. Stark effect. "Switched-off" state allows for perfect low-loss single-mode transition (Qi ~ 10 million) under an ultra-compact bend size (FSR ~ 115 GHz) in a foundry-based silicon microring. It breaks the stereotyped image of the FSR-Q factor trade-off, enabling ultra-wideband and high-resolution millimeter-wave photonic operations. Our demonstration provides a flexible and portable solution for the integrated photonic molecule system, extending its research scope from fundamental physics to real-world applications such as nonlinear optical signal processing and sixth-generation wireless communication.

Slow-light silicon modulator with 110-GHz bandwidth.

Silicon modulators are key components to support the dense integration of electro-optic functional elements for various applications. Despite numerous advances in promoting the modulation speed, a bandwidth ceiling emerges in practices and becomes an obstacle toward Tbps-level throughput on a single chip. Here, we demonstrate a compact pure silicon modulator that shatters present bandwidth ceiling to 110 gigahertz. The proposed modulator is built on a cascade corrugated waveguide architecture, which gives rise to a slow-light effect. By comprehensively balancing a series of merits, the modulators can benefit from the slow light for better efficiency and compact size while remaining sufficiently high bandwidth. Consequently, we realize a 110-gigahertz modulator with 124-micrometer length, enabling 112 gigabits per second on-off keying operation. Our work proves that silicon modulators with 110 gigahertz are feasible, thus shedding light on its potentials in ultrahigh bandwidth applications such as optical interconnection and photonic machine learning.

Recent Progress in Silicon-Based Slow-Light Electro-Optic Modulators.

As an important optoelectronic integration platform, silicon photonics has achieved significant progress in recent years, demonstrating the advantages on low power consumption, low cost, and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility. Among the different silicon photonics devices, the silicon electro-optic modulator is a key active component to implement the conversion of electric signal to optical signal. However, conventional silicon Mach-Zehnder modulators and silicon micro-ring modulators both have their own limitations, which will limit their use in future systems. For example, the conventional silicon Mach-Zehnder modulators are hindered by large footprint, while the silicon micro-ring modulators have narrow optical bandwidth and high temperature sensitivity. Therefore, developing a new structure for silicon modulators to improve the performance is a crucial research direction in silicon photonics. Meanwhile, slow-light effect is an important physical phenomenon that can reduce the group velocity of light. Applying slow-light effect on silicon modulators through photonics crystal and waveguide grating structures is an attractive research point, especially in the aspect of reducing the device footprint. In this paper, we review the recent progress of silicon-based slow-light electro-optic modulators towards future communication requirements. Beginning from the principle of slow-light effect, we summarize the research of silicon photonic crystal modulators and silicon waveguide grating modulators in detail. Simultaneously, the experimental results of representative silicon slow-light modulators are compared and analyzed. Finally, we discuss the existing challenges and development directions of silicon-based slow-light electro-optic modulators for the practical applications.

1/f-noise-free optical sensing with an integrated heterodyne interferometer.

Optical evanescent sensors can non-invasively detect unlabeled nanoscale objects in real time with unprecedented sensitivity, enabling a variety of advances in fundamental physics and biological applications. However, the intrinsic low-frequency noise therein with an approximately 1/f-shaped spectral density imposes an ultimate detection limit for monitoring many paramount processes, such as antigen-antibody reactions, cell motions and DNA hybridizations. Here, we propose and demonstrate a 1/f-noise-free optical sensor through an up-converted detection system. Experimentally, in a CMOS-compatible heterodyne interferometer, the sampling noise amplitude is suppressed by two orders of magnitude. It pushes the label-free single-nanoparticle detection limit down to the attogram level without exploiting cavity resonances, plasmonic effects, or surface charges on the analytes. Single polystyrene nanobeads and HIV-1 virus-like particles are detected as a proof-of-concept demonstration for airborne biosensing. Based on integrated waveguide arrays, our devices hold great potentials for multiplexed and rapid sensing of diverse viruses or molecules.