Simple and efficient methods for the accurate evaluation of patterning effects in ultrafast photonic switches.

Although patterning effects (PEs) are known to be a limiting factor of ultrafast photonic switches based on semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs), a simple approach for their evaluation in numerical simulations and experiments is missing. In this work, we experimentally investigate and verify a theoretical prediction of the pseudo random binary sequence (PRBS) length needed to capture the full impact of PEs. A wide range of SOAs and operation conditions are investigated.

Multi-channel WDM RZ-to-NRZ format conversion at 50 Gbit/s based on single silicon microring resonator.

We comprehensively analyze multiple WDM channels RZ-to-NRZ format conversion using a single microring resonator. The scheme relies on simultaneous suppression of the first order harmonic components in the spectra of all the RZ channels. An optimized silicon microring resonator with free spectral range of 100 GHz and Q value of 7900 is designed and fabricated for this purpose.

Strained silicon as a new electro-optic material.

For decades, silicon has been the material of choice for mass fabrication of electronics. This is in contrast to photonics, where passive optical components in silicon have only recently been realized. The slow progress within silicon optoelectronics, where electronic and optical functionalities can be integrated into monolithic components based on the versatile silicon platform, is due to the limited active optical properties of silicon.

Direct experimental and numerical determination of extremely high group indices in photonic crystal waveguides.

We report on time-of-flight experimental measurements and numerical calculations of the group-index dispersion in a photonic crystal waveguide realized in silicon-on-insulator material. Experimentally group indices higher than 230 has been observed. Numerical 2D and 3D time-domain simulations show excellent agreement with the measured data.