Low-Cost 400 Gbps DR4 Silicon Photonics Transmitter for Short-Reach Datacenter Application.

Targeting high-speed, low-cost, short-reach intra-datacenter connections, we designed and tested an integrated silicon photonic circuit as a transmitter engine. This engine can be packaged into an optical transceiver module which meets the QSFP-DD Form Factor, together with other electrical/optical components. We first present the design and performance of a high-speed silicon modulator, which had a 3-dB EO bandwidth of >40 GHz and an ER of >5 dB.

Low-voltage high-speed coupling modulation in silicon racetrack ring resonators.

We demonstrate a low-voltage high-speed modulator based on a silicon racetrack resonator with a tunable Mach-Zehnder interferometer coupler. Both static measurement and dynamic modulation experiment are carried out. The 3-dB electro-optic bandwidth is measured to be >30 GHz beyond the limit by the cavity photon lifetime.

Enhanced near-infrared photodetection with avalanche gain in silicon microdisk resonators integrated with p-n diodes.

We investigate the photocurrent generation by two-photon absorption effect in silicon microdisk resonators integrated with p-n diodes. The photocurrent is quite dependent on the p-n junction position with respect to the whispering gallery mode. Avalanche gain increases significantly when the bias exceeds -19  V, leading to considerable enhancement of photocurrent.

Selective excitation of microring resonances using a pulley-coupling structure.

We explore the selective excitation of resonances in microring resonators with a pulley-coupling structure. Due to the wavelength dispersion of coupling coefficient, only the resonances near critical coupling exhibit pronounced sharp notches in the transmission spectrum. Experimental results show that the resonance extinction ratio is a strong function of wavelength.

Photoconductive effect on p-i-p micro-heaters integrated in silicon microring resonators.

We study the photoconductive effect of a p-i-p micro-heater integrated in a microring resonator. Due to the surface state absorption (SSA) and two photon absorption (TPA) of optical wave around 1550 nm, free carriers are generated in the silicon waveguide, leading to the modulation of silicon conductivity and thus the current flowing through it. The current-voltage (I-V) response of the p-i-p diode is dependent on the bias voltage and can be divided into ohmic-law regime and space-charge-limited regime.

CMOS-compatible temperature-independent tunable silicon optical lattice filters.

We present a CMOS-compatible athermal tunable silicon optical lattice filter composed of 10 cascaded 2 × 2 asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometers. Active tuning experiments show that the filter central wavelength can be red-/blue-shifted by 13.1/21.

Tunable two-stage self-coupled optical waveguide resonators.

We report tunable two-stage self-coupled optical waveguide (SCOW) resonators composed of a pair of mirror-imaged single SCOW resonators connected by a phase shifter in between. Experimental results show that the coupled-resonator-induced-transparency and high-order bandstop filtering characteristics can be obtained in the transmission spectra of the devices with two different configurations. The resonance spectrum can be tuned by using either a p-i-p microheater or a p-i-n diode in the phase shifter.

Tunable silicon Fabry-Perot comb filters formed by Sagnac loop mirrors.

We experimentally demonstrate tunable silicon comb filters based on Fabry-Perot (FP) resonators composed of two Sagnac loop mirrors. The comb filter resolves up to 54 comb lines with a 115 GHz channel spacing over a spectral range from 1510 to 1560 nm. The comb line extinction ratio is ~26.