Demonstration of a bi-directionally tunable arrayed waveguide grating with ultra-low thermal power using S-shaped architecture and parallel-circuit configuration.

A thermally bi-directionally tunable arrayed waveguide grating (TBDTAWG) is proposed and demonstrated on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform. The device is composed of passive and active designs for realizations of an AWG and fine tuning of its filtering responses. Given that the required length difference between adjacent arrayed waveguides for the SOI platform is considerably short (∼3-5 µm) due to a high index contrast, an S-shaped architecture with a larger footprint instead of a rectangular one is employed in the AWG. Bi-directionally tunable functions, i.e., both red- and blue-shift tunable functions, can be achieved by using two triangular thermal-tuning regions with complementary phase distributions in the S-shaped architecture despite using only materials with positive thermo-optic coefficients, i.e., Si and SiO2. Measurement results illustrate that both red- or blue-shifted spectra can be achieved and a linear bi-directional shift-to-power ratio of ±30.5 nm/W as well as a wide tuning range of 8 nm can be obtained under an electrical voltage range of 0-2.5 V, showing an agreement between the measurement results and two-dimensional simulation results. This also shows the potential of the proposed TBDTAWG for automatically stabilizing the spectral responses of AWG-based (de)multiplexers for coarse or dense wavelength division multiplexing communication systems by using a feedback control circuit.

Broadband ultra-compact polarization splitter-rotator using diagonally overlapped bi-layer architecture.

A broadband and ultra-compact polarization splitter-rotator based on diagonally overlapped bi-layer architecture and an asymmetrical directional coupler is proposed on a silicon-on-insulator platform. By leveraging the structure over supermode theory, a 1-dB bandwidth of 220 nm, extinction ratio (ER) of <19dB, and cross talk (XT) of <-15.85dB within the span of 1400-1700 nm and coupling length of 4.62 µm are achieved. In addition, TM0-TE0 conversion loss of ∼0.19dB, ER of 35.88 dB, and XT of -30.46dB can be obtained at 1550 nm. The fabrication tolerances are also analyzed, indicating that the insertion losses remain below 1 dB over 1460-1620 nm in terms of width errors and layer-to-layer misalignments within ±10nm. The results show that the proposed device is very suitable to utilize between fibers and for polarization diversity of on-chip systems for broadband operation as well as ultra-compact integration.

Increasing responsivity-bandwidth margin of germanium waveguide photodetector with simple corner reflector.

The external bandwidth of germanium waveguide photodetectors (PDs) decreases with the device length due to the load and parasitic effects even if the internal one is less affected. Shortening PDs raises the external bandwidth but lowers the responsivity, introducing a trade-off between the two figures of merits. Here, we present a scheme of waveguide PDs based on total internal reflections of corner reflectors. The reflector can be easily fabricated with the standard photolithography at the end of PDs to efficiently reflect optical power back to germanium for additional absorption, allowing for further size reduction. The structure may render the optimization of PDs more flexible.

Comparison of single-/few-/multi-mode 850 nm VCSELs for optical OFDM transmission.

For high-speed optical OFDM transmission applications, a comprehensive comparison of the homemade multi-/few-/single-transverse mode (MM/FM/SM) vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) chips is performed. With microwave probe, the direct encoding of pre-leveled 16-QAM OFDM data and transmission over 100-m-long OM4 multi-mode-fiber (MMF) are demonstrated for intra-datacenter applications. The MM VCSEL chip with the largest emission aperture of 11 µm reveals the highest differential quantum efficiency which provides the highest optical power of 8.67 mW but exhibits the lowest encodable bandwidth of 21 GHz. In contrast, the SM VCSEL chip fabricated with the smallest emission aperture of only 3 µm provides the highest 3-dB encoding bandwidth up to 23 GHz at a cost of slight heat accumulation. After optimization, with the trade-off set between the receiving signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and bandwidth, the FM VCSEL chip guarantees the highest optical OFDM transmission bit rate of 96 Gbit/s under back-to-back case with its strongest throughput. Among three VCSEL chips, the SM VCSEL chip with nearly modal-dispersion free feature is treated as the best candidate for carrying the pre-leveled 16-QAM OFDM data over 100-m OM4-MMF with same material structure but exhibits different oxide-layer confined gain cross-sections with one another at 80-Gbit/s with the smallest receiving power penalty of 1.77 dB.

45 Gb/s PAM4 transmission based on VCSEL with light injection and optoelectronic feedback techniques.

A 45 Gb/s four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) transmission based on an 850 nm/7.4 GHz vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) with light injection and optoelectronic feedback techniques is proposed. Experimental results show that such an 850 nm/7.4 GHz VCSEL with light injection and optoelectronic feedback techniques is powerful enough for a 45 Gb/s PAM4 signal transmission. To the best of our knowledge, this Letter is the first to adopt a VCSEL transmitter with light injection and optoelectronic feedback techniques in a 45 Gb/s PAM4 transmission system. Good bit error rate performance and three independent clear eye diagrams are achieved over a 200-m OM4 multimode fiber transport. This proposed 45 Gb/s PAM4 VCSEL-based transmission system has great potential for providing effective bandwidth in short-reach optical data communications.

High-quality-factor filter based on a photonic crystal ring resonator for wavelength division multiplexing applications.

We investigate the properties of ring resonators that are supported by a two-dimensional photonic crystal waveguide. The proposed structure composed of a photonic crystal ring resonator (PCRR) with four scatters can really function as a wavelength division multiplexer. The significance of the design is that the output waveguide is perpendicular to the ring resonator. We numerically demonstrate that the proposed four-channel PCRR device with 3 x 3 inner dielectric rods can provide a transmission efficiency larger than 92%, a quality factor higher than 3800, and crosstalk of less than -32 dB.

New all-optical logic gates based on the local nonlinear Mach-Zehnder interferometer.

We propose new all-optical logic gates containing a local nonlinear Mach-Zehnder interferometer waveguide structure. The light-induced index changes in the Mach-Zehnder waveguide structure make the output signal beam propagate through different nonlinear output waveguides. Based on the output signal beam propagating property, various all-optical logic gates by using the local nonlinear Mach-Zehnder waveguide interferometer structure with two straight control waveguides have been proposed to perform XOR/NXOR, AND/NAND, and OR/NOR logic functions.

Efficient Heat Dissipation of Uncooled 400-Gbps (16×25-Gbps) Optical Transceiver Employing Multimode VCSEL and PD Arrays.

An effective heat dissipation of uncooled 400-Gbps (16×25-Gbps) form-factor pluggable (CDFP) optical transceiver module employing chip-on-board multimode 25-Gbps vertical-surface-emitting-laser (VCSEL) and 25-Gbps photodiode (PD) arrays mounted on a brass metal core embedded within a printed circuit board (PCB) is proposed and demonstrated. This new scheme of the hollow PCB filling with thermally-dissipated brass metal core was simulated and used for high temperature and long term stability operation of the proposed 400-Gbps CDFP transceiver. During one-hour testing, a red-shift of central wavelength by 0.4-nm corresponding temperature increment of 6.7 °C was observed with the brass core assisted cooler module. Such a temperature change was significantly lower than that of 28.3 °C for the optical transceiver driven with conventional circuit board. After 100-m distance transmission over a multimode fiber (OM4), the 400-Gbps CDFP transceiver exhibited dispersion penalty of 2.6-dB, power budget of ≧ 3-dB, link loss of ≦ 0.63-dB, mask margin of 20%, and bit error rate (BER) of <10-12 with maintained stability more than one hour. The developed 400-Gbps CDFP transceiver module employing low-power consumption VCSEL and PD arrays, effective coupling lens arrays, and well thermal-dissipation brass metal core is suitable for use in the low-cost and high-performance data center applications.

Optical interleavers based on two-dimensional photonic crystals.

An ultrasmall device size optical interleaver based on directional coupler waveguides in two-dimensional photonic crystals (PCs) is proposed. The numerical results show that the proposed PCs waveguide structure could really function as an interleaver with the central wavelength 1550 nm and the channel spacing 0.8 nm (frequency spacing of 100 GHz) of the dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) specification. It can be widely used as the wavelength selective element for multiplexer-demultiplexer to lower or raise channel densities in DWDM optical fiber communication systems.