Silicon photonic Mach Zehnder modulators for next-generation short-reach optical communication networks

C. Lacava; Z. Liu; D. Thomson; Li Ke; J. M. Fedeli; D. J. Richardson; G. T. Reed; P. Petropoulos

doi:10.1117/12.2211330

12 February 2016 Silicon photonic Mach Zehnder modulators for next-generation short-reach optical communication networks

C. Lacava, Z. Liu, D. Thomson, Li Ke, J. M. Fedeli, D. J. Richardson, G. T. Reed, P. Petropoulos

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9772, Broadband Access Communication Technologies X; 977209 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2211330
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2016, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Communication traffic grows relentlessly in today’s networks, and with ever more machines connected to the network, this trend is set to continue for the foreseeable future. It is widely accepted that increasingly faster communications are required at the point of the end users, and consequently optical transmission plays a progressively greater role even in short- and medium-reach networks. Silicon photonic technologies are becoming increasingly attractive for such networks, due to their potential for low cost, energetically efficient, high-speed optical components. A representative example is the silicon-based optical modulator, which has been actively studied. Researchers have demonstrated silicon modulators in different types of structures, such as ring resonators or slow light based devices. These approaches have shown remarkably good performance in terms of modulation efficiency, however their operation could be severely affected by temperature drifts or fabrication errors. Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZM), on the other hand, show good performance and resilience to different environmental conditions. In this paper we present a CMOS-compatible compact silicon MZM. We study the application of the modulator to short-reach interconnects by realizing data modulation using some relevant advanced modulation formats, such as 4-level Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM-4) and Discrete Multi-Tone (DMT) modulation and compare the performance of the different systems in transmission.

Citation Download Citation

C. Lacava, Z. Liu, D. Thomson, Li Ke, J. M. Fedeli, D. J. Richardson, G. T. Reed, and P. Petropoulos "Silicon photonic Mach Zehnder modulators for next-generation short-reach optical communication networks", Proc. SPIE 9772, Broadband Access Communication Technologies X, 977209 (12 February 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2211330

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available