William M. J. Green

Ultra-compact, low RF power, 10 Gb/s silicon Mach-Zehnder modulator

Silicon p(+)-i-n(+) diode Mach-Zehnder electrooptic modulators having an ultra-compact length of 100 to 200 mum are presented. These devices exhibit high modulation efficiency, with a V(pi)L figure of merit of 0.36 V-mm. Optical modulation at data rates up to 10 Gb/s is demonstrated with low RF power consumption of only 5 pJ/bit.

Mid-infrared optical parametric amplifier using silicon nanophotonic waveguides

By taking advantage of the absorption reduction at wavelengths approaching the two-photon absorption bandedge of 2,200 nm, scientists demonstrate a mid-infrared silicon optical parametric amplifier that exhibits broadband gain as large as 25.4 dB and a net off-chip amplification of 13 dB using only an ultra-compact 4-mm silicon chip.

Group index and group velocity dispersion in silicon-on-insulator photonic wires

We determine group index and group velocity dispersion (GVD) of SOI single-mode strip waveguides (photonic wires) with 525x226nm cross-section over the entire telecommunication bandwidth by employing an integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The measured GVD yields 4400 ps/(nm*km) at 1550 nm and exceeds that of standard single-mode fibers by almost three orders of magnitude. In the photonic wires the GVD is mainly determined by strong light confinement rather than by material dispersion. Our results indicate that despite this high GVD, dispersion-induced signal impairment is negligible in photonic circuits for data rates up to 100-Gb/s and total waveguide lengths as long as about 1 meter. The measured group index and GVD are used as benchmarks to compare model calculations originating from four different theoretical methods.

Engineering nonlinearities in nanoscale optical systems: physics and applications in dispersion-engineered silicon nanophotonic wires

The nonlinear optics of Si photonic wires is discussed. The distinctive features of these waveguides are that they have extremely large third-order susceptibility χ(3) and dispersive properties. The strong dispersion and large third-order nonlinearity in Si photonic wires cause the linear and nonlinear optical physics in these guides to be intimately linked. By carefully choosing the waveguide dimensions, both linear and nonlinear optical properties of Si wires can be engineered. We review the fundamental optical physics and emerging applications for these Si wires. In many cases, the relatively low threshold powers for nonlinear optical effects in these wires make them potential candidates for functional on-chip nonlinear optical devices of just a few millimeters in length; conversely, the absence of nonlinear optical impairment is important for the use of Si wires in on-chip interconnects. In addition, the characteristic length scales of linear and nonlinear optical effects in Si wires are markedly different from those in commonly used optical guiding systems, such as optical fibers or photonic crystal fibers, and therefore guiding structures based on Si wires represent ideal optical media for investigating new and intriguing physical phenomena.

A 90nm CMOS integrated Nano-Photonics technology for 25Gbps WDM optical communications applications

The first sub-100nm technology that allows the monolithic integration of optical modulators and germanium photodetectors as features into a current 90nm base high-performance logic technology node is demonstrated. The resulting 90nm CMOS-integrated Nano-Photonics technology node is optimized for analog functionality to yield power-efficient single-die multichannel wavelength-mulitplexed 25Gbps transceivers.

Ultrahigh-Bandwidth Silicon Photonic Nanowire Waveguides for On-Chip Networks

An investigation of signal integrity in silicon photonic nanowire waveguides is performed for wavelength-division-multiplexed optical signals. First, we demonstrate the feasibility of ultrahigh-bandwidth integrated photonic networks by transmitting a 1.28-Tb/s data stream (32 wavelengths times 40-Gb/s) through a 5-cm-long silicon wire. Next, the crosstalk induced in the highly confined waveguide is evaluated, while varying the number of wavelength channels, with bit-error-rate measurements at 10 Gb/s per channel. The power penalty of a 24-channel signal is 3.3 dB, while the power penalty of a single-channel signal is 0.6 dB. Finally, single-channel power penalty measurements are taken over a wide range of input powers and indicate negligible change for launch powers of up to 7 dBm.

Mid-infrared to telecom-band supercontinuum generation in highly nonlinear silicon-on-insulator wire waveguides

We demonstrate the generation of a supercontinuum in a 2 cm long silicon wire by pumping the wire with mid-infrared picosecond pulses in the anomalous dispersion regime. The supercontinuum extends from 1535 nm up to 2525 nm for a coupled peak power of 12.7 W. It is shown that the supercontinuum originates primarily from the amplification of background noise. A detailed analysis of the spectral components which are generated through phase-matched processes is applied to extract the group velocity dispersion and fourth-order dispersion coefficient of the silicon wire waveguide.

Monolithic Silicon Integration of Scaled Photonic Switch Fabrics, CMOS Logic, and Device Driver Circuits

We demonstrate 4 × 4 and 8 × 8 switch fabrics in multistage topologies based on 2 × 2 Mach-Zehnder interferometer switching elements. These fabrics are integrated onto a single chip with digital CMOS logic, device drivers, thermo-optic phase tuners, and electro-optic phase modulators using IBMs 90 nm silicon integrated nanophotonics technology. We show that the various switch-and-driver systems are capable of delivering nanosecond-scale reconfiguration times, low crosstalk, compact footprints, low power dissipations, and broad spectral bandwidths. Moreover, we validate the dynamic reconfigurability of the switch fabric changing the state of the fabric using time slots with sub-100-ns durations. We further verify the integrity of high-speed data transfers under such dynamic operation. This chip-scale switching system technology may provide a compelling solution to replace some routing functionality currently implemented as bandwidth- and power-limited electronic switch chips in high-performance computing systems.

Non-blocking 4x4 electro-optic silicon switch for on-chip photonic networks

We present a 4x4 spatially non-blocking Mach-Zehnder based silicon optical switch fabricated using processes fully compatible with standard CMOS. We successfully demonstrate operation in all 9 unique switch states and 12 possible I/O routing configurations, with worst-case cross-talk levels lower than -9 dB, and common spectral bandwidth of 7 nm. High-speed 40 Gbps data transmission experiments verify optical data integrity for all input-output channels.

Telecommunications-band heralded single photons from a silicon nanophotonic chip

A highly nonlinear (γ≈3700/W·m) silicon coupled-resonator-optical-waveguide generated heralded single photons (g⁽²⁾ (0) ≤ 0.19 ±0.03) and widely-spaced photon pairs with coincidences-to-accidentals ratio >;10 (cw) and >;23 (pulsed), and outperformed a 54× longer silicon nanophotonic waveguide.