Carl B. Poitras

WDM-compatible mode-division multiplexing on a silicon chip

Significant effort in optical-fibre research has been put in recent years into realizing mode-division multiplexing (MDM) in conjunction with wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) to enable further scaling of the communication bandwidth per fibre. In contrast, almost all integrated photonics operate exclusively in the single-mode regime. MDM is rarely considered for integrated photonics because of the difficulty in coupling selectively to high-order modes, which usually results in high inter-modal crosstalk. Here we show the first microring-based demonstration of on-chip WDM-compatible mode-division multiplexing with low modal crosstalk and loss. Our approach can potentially increase the aggregate data rate by many times for on-chip ultrahigh bandwidth communications.

Ultrashort free-carrier lifetime in low-loss silicon nanowaveguides

We demonstrate reduction of the free-carrier lifetime in a silicon nanowaveguide from 3 ns to 12.2 ps by applying a reverse bias across an integrated p-i-n diode. This observation represents the shortest free-carrier lifetime demonstrated to date in silicon waveguides. Importantly, the presence of the p-i-n structure does not measurably increase the propagation loss of the waveguide. We derive a figure of merit demonstrating equal dependency of the nonlinear phase shift on free-carrier lifetime and linear propagation loss.

Silicon-Chip Mid-Infrared Frequency Comb Generation

We report the first on-chip integrated mid-infrared frequency comb using a silicon optical parametric oscillator ring resonator. We demonstrate a 750-nm-wide comb centered at 2.6 um.

Deposited silicon high-speed integrated electro-optic modulator

We demonstrate a micrometer-scale electro-optic modulator operating at 2.5 Gbps and 10 dB extinction ratio that is fabricated entirely from deposited silicon. The polycrystalline silicon material exhibits properties that simultaneously enable high quality factor optical resonators and sub-nanosecond electrical carrier injection. We use an embedded p(+)n(-)n(+) diode to achieve optical modulation using the free carrier plasma dispersion effect. Active optical devices in a deposited microelectronic material can break the dependence on the traditional single layer silicon-on-insulator platform and help lead to monolithic large-scale integration of photonic networks on a microprocessor chip.

Wide-bandwidth continuously tunable optical delay line using silicon microring resonators

We demonstrate a distortion free tunable optical delay as long as 135 ps with a 10 GHz bandwidth using thermally tuned silicon microring resonators in the novel balanced configuration. The device is simple, easy to control and compact measuring only 30 µm wide by 250 µm long.

Wide temperature range operation of micrometer-scale silicon electro-optic modulators

We demonstrate high bit rate electro-optic modulation in a resonant micrometer-scale silicon modulator over an ambient temperature range of 15 K. We show that low bit error rates can be achieved by varying the bias current through the device to thermally counteract the ambient temperature changes. Robustness in the presence of thermal variations can enable a wide variety of applications for dense on chip electronic photonic integration.

Overcoming Si 3 N 4 film stress limitations for high quality factor ring resonators

We overcome stress limitations of thick SiN films using termination trenches to isolate the device area from crack propagation. We measure an unprecedented quality factor of 6.5 million in a high confinement SiN ring resonator.

Near-Field Radiative Cooling of Nanostructures

We measure near-field radiative cooling of a thermally isolated nanostructure up to a few degrees and show that in principle this process can efficiently cool down localized hotspots by tens of degrees at submicrometer gaps. This process of cooling is achieved without any physical contact, in contrast to heat transfer through conduction, thus enabling novel cooling capabilities. We show that the measured trend of radiative cooling agrees well theoretical predictions and is limited mainly by the geometry of the probe used here as well as the minimum separation that could be achieved in our setup. These results also pave the way for realizing other new effects based on resonant heat transfer, like thermal rectification and negative thermal conductance.

Photoluminescence enhancement of colloidal quantum dots embedded in a monolithic microcavity

We demonstrate an enhancement of the spontaneous emission from colloidal CdSe quantum dots embedded in a half-wavelength one-dimensional cavity. When embedded in the cavity, the emission of the quantum dots is enhanced by a factor of 2.7. We also show a strong amplification by one order of magnitude in the absorption of the CdSe quantum dots due to the cavity effect.

High-Speed 2

We report the fabrication and experimental verification of a multiwavelength high-speed 2 times 2 silicon photonic switch for ultrahigh-bandwidth message routing in optical on-chip networks. The structure employs only two microring resonators in order to implement the bar and cross states of the switch. These states are toggled using an optical pump at 1.5-mum wavelengths inplane with the waveguide devices, though electronic, rather than optical, control schemes are envisioned for more complex systems built from these devices. Experiments characterize bit-error-rate performance in the bar and cross states during static and dynamic operation. The all-optical demonstration exhibits the ability of the switch to implement ultra-short transition times (<2 ns), high extinction ratios (>10 dB), and low power penalties (~1 dB) at a data rate of 10 Gb/s. Further performance improvements are expected by using electronic carrier injection via p-i-n diodes surrounding the ring waveguides. The 2 times 2 switching functionality facilitates the design of more complex routing structures, allowing the implementation of high-functionality integrated optical networks.