Photonic ADC: overcoming the bottleneck of electronic jitter.

Accurate conversion of wideband multi-GHz analog signals into the digital domain has long been a target of analog-to-digital converter (ADC) developers, driven by applications in radar systems, software radio, medical imaging, and communication systems. Aperture jitter has been a major bottleneck on the way towards higher speeds and better accuracy. Photonic ADCs, which perform sampling using ultra-stable optical pulse trains generated by mode-locked lasers, have been investigated for many years as a promising approach to overcome the jitter problem and bring ADC performance to new levels. This work demonstrates that the photonic approach can deliver on its promise by digitizing a 41 GHz signal with 7.0 effective bits using a photonic ADC built from discrete components. This accuracy corresponds to a timing jitter of 15 fs - a 4-5 times improvement over the performance of the best electronic ADCs which exist today. On the way towards an integrated photonic ADC, a silicon photonic chip with core photonic components was fabricated and used to digitize a 10 GHz signal with 3.5 effective bits. In these experiments, two wavelength channels were implemented, providing the overall sampling rate of 2.1 GSa/s. To show that photonic ADCs with larger channel counts are possible, a dual 20-channel silicon filter bank has been demonstrated.

Increased process latitude in absorbance-modulated lithography via a plasmonic reflector.

Absorbance-modulated lithography is a relatively new optical patterning method where a thin layer of photochromic molecules is placed between the far-field optics and photoresist. These molecules can be made transparent or opaque by illuminating with wavelengths λ1 or λ2, respectively. By simultaneously illuminating this layer with patterns of both wavelengths it is possible to create an absorption mask capable of subwavelength resolution. This resolution comes at the price of limited contrast and depth-of-focus resulting in poor process latitude. Here it is shown that by using TM polarization for λ1 and integrating a plasmonic reflector process latitude is increased by up to 66%.

Reconfigurable multi-channel second-order silicon microring-resonator filterbanks for on-chip WDM systems.

We report the fabrication of a reconfigurable wide-band twenty-channel second-order dual filterbank, defined on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform, with tunable channel spacing and 20 GHz single-channel bandwidth. We demonstrate the precise tuning of eleven (out of the twenty) channels, with a channel spacing of 124 GHz (~1 nm) and crosstalk between channels of about -45 dB. The effective thermo-optic tuning efficiency is about 27 µW/GHz/ring. A single channel of a twenty-channel counter-propagating filterbank is also demonstrated, showing that both propagating modes exhibit identical filter responses. Considerations about thermal crosstalk are also presented. These filterbanks are suitable for on-chip wavelength-division-multiplexing applications, and have the largest-to-date reported number of channels built on an SOI platform.

Nanophotonic integration in state-of-the-art CMOS foundries.

We demonstrate a monolithic photonic integration platform that leverages the existing state-of-the-art CMOS foundry infrastructure. In our approach, proven XeF2 post-processing technology and compliance with electronic foundry process flows eliminate the need for specialized substrates or wafer bonding. This approach enables intimate integration of large numbers of nanophotonic devices alongside high-density, high-performance transistors at low initial and incremental cost. We demonstrate this platform by presenting grating-coupled, microring-resonator filter banks fabricated in an unmodified 28 nm bulk-CMOS process by sharing a mask set with standard electronic projects. The lithographic fidelity of this process enables the high-throughput fabrication of second-order, wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) filter banks that achieve low insertion loss without post-fabrication trimming.

Device architecture and precision nanofabrication of microring-resonator filter banks for integrated photonic systems.

To achieve the maximum benefit of electronic-photonic integrated circuits wavelength-division multiplexing must be used. This requires the design and fabrication of a highly integratable photonic device, capable of performing multiplexing/demultiplexing operations with low loss and minimal crosstalk. A filter bank consisting of high-index-contrast microring-resonator filters, with accurately spaced resonant frequencies can meet these requirements. This paper describes the basic architecture of microring-resonator filter banks, and how to maximize performance while keeping fabrication challenges reasonable. The greatest challenge in fabricating such devices is achieving the dimensional precision, on the scale of tens of picometers, needed to attain accurately spaced resonant frequencies. To do this, a fabrication method based on varying the electron-beam dose during scanning-electron beam lithography is used. This approach is used to create a dual twenty-channel filter bank, comprised of second-order silicon-rich silicon nitride microring resonators. The average resonant frequency spacing is off from the target spacing by only 3 GHz, corresponding to a dimensional precision of 75 pm. This approach is also shown to be compatible with the fabrication process for silicon microring resonators. Furthermore, it is shown that any remaining resonant frequency errors can be corrected with postfabrication thermal tuning. Also, a method of using the contra-propagating mode of a microring-resonator filter is demonstrated, enabling a single filter bank to multiplex/demultiplex two signals at the same time.

Accurate frequency alignment in fabrication of high-order microring-resonator filters.

Frequency mismatch in high-order microring-resonator filters is investigated. We demonstrate that this frequency mismatch is caused mainly by the intrafield distortion of scanning-electron-beam-lithography (SEBL) used in fabrication. The intrafield distortion of an SEBL system is measured, and a simple method is also proposed to correct this distortion. By applying this correction method, the average frequency mismatch in second-order microring-resonator filters was reduced from -8.6 GHz to 0.28 GHz.