Next Generation Silicon Photonic Transceiver: From Device Innovation to System Analysis

Silicon photonics is recognized as a disruptive technology that has the potential to reshape many application areas, for example, data center communication, telecommunications, high-performance computing, and sensing. The key capability that silicon photonics offers is to leverage CMOS-style design, fabrication, and test infrastructure to build compact, energy-efficient, and high-performance integrated photonic systems-on- chip at low cost. As the need to squeeze more data into a given bandwidth and a given footprint increases, silicon photonics becomes more and more promising. This work develops and demonstrates novel devices, methodologies, and architectures to resolve the challenges facing the next-generation silicon photonic transceivers. The first part of this thesis focuses on the topology optimization of passive silicon photonic devices. Specifically, a novel device optimization methodology - particle swarm optimization in conjunction with 3D finite-difference time-domain (FDTD), has been proposed and proven to be an effective way to design a wide range of passive silicon photonic devices. We demonstrate a polarization rotator and a 90◦ optical hybrid for polarization-diversity and phase-diversity communications - two important schemes to increase the communication capacity by increasing the spectral efficiency. The second part of this thesis focuses on the design and characterization of the next- generation silicon photonic transceivers. We demonstrate a polarization-insensitive WDM receiver with an aggregate data rate of 160 Gb/s. This receiver adopts a novel architecture which effectively reduces the polarization-dependent loss. In addition, we demonstrate a III-V/silicon hybrid external cavity laser with a tuning range larger than 60 nm in the C-band on a silicon-on-insulator platform. A III-V semiconductor gain chip is hybridized into the silicon chip by edge-coupling to the silicon chip. The demonstrated packaging method requires only passive alignment and is thus suitable for high-volume production. We also demonstrate all silicon-photonics-based transmission of 34 Gbaud (272 Gb/s) dual-polarization 16-QAM using our integrated laser and silicon photonic coherent transceiver. The results show no additional penalty compared to commercially available narrow linewidth tunable lasers. The last part of this thesis focuses on the chip-scale optical interconnect and presents two different types of reconfigurable memory interconnects for multi-core many-memory computing systems. These reconfigurable interconnects can effectively alleviate the memory access issues, such as non-uniform memory access, and Network-on-Chip (NoC) hot-spots that plague the many-memory computing systems by dynamically directing the available memory bandwidth to the required memory interface

Optical comb injection for optical demultiplexing and harmonic frequency locking

With the continued growth of internet traffic, new optical communication infrastructures capable of dramatically increasing network bandwidth are being considered. Optical superchannels consisting of densely packed channels will be required for future networks, which could potentially be implemented using optical frequency combs - optical sources which consists of a series of discrete, equally spaced frequency lines. Optical combs can increase the spectral efficiency of these superchannels by allowing the channels to be more densely packed, while simultaneously reducing the number of components required (decreasing the energy consumption), and simplifying the digital signal processing required. Despite these advantages, the trade-off between cost and performance must be favourable in order for optical combs to become feasible for use in future communication networks. Photonic integrated circuits integrate several components together on a single semiconductor chip. These photonic circuits reduce both the cost and power consumption of devices, and hence recent research has been focused on creating suitable on-chip coherent optical comb transmitters. This thesis investigates an approach which is being used to demultiplex narrowly spaced optical combs on a photonic integrated circuit. By injection locking a laser to one of the lines in the optical comb (i.e, forcing a laser to lase with the frequency of that comb line), the comb line can be amplified and demultiplexed. This work investigates the physics of these active demultiplexers, both experimentally and numerically. It is found that the optimal side mode suppression ratio is obtained when the ratio of the comb's power to the injected laser's power is small, which also indicates optimal performance occurs when the locking range of the injected laser is at its smallest. The relaxation oscillations of the injected laser affect how well the comb can be demultiplexed, and as a result better side mode suppression ratios can be achieved at larger comb spacings. Further, it is shown that the relaxation oscillations within the injected laser can become undamped due to the comb injection, and frequency lock to fractions of the optical comb spacing. The injected laser can even become locked at detunings between the comb lines, creating a new output optical comb through nonlinear processes. The above phenomena are investigated numerically using two dimensional maps, and it is found that Arnol'd tongues appear in the injected laser's locking map

Silica-on-silicon lightwave circuits based on multimode interference for optical communications

The thesis focuses the design and fabrication of silica-on-silicon multimode interference (MMI) devices for optical communications. Firstly, the relationship between different kinds of multimode interference was established for the first time. This gives a clearer understanding of the multimode interference and helps to design better performance optical MMI devices With the consideration of weak lateral light confinement, different kinds of novel approaches to designing high performance MMI devices are developed. The first new approach is for optimization of silica-on-silicon MMI couplers. It is shown that the length of the multimode section can be varied in a well-defined range to find optimal device performance. The range is linked to the propagation constant spacing of fundamental and higher order modes of the multimode waveguide. The second approach is to introduce a new criterion for designing a MMI coupler with central input. According to overlapping interference analysis, one image space should be left for the adjacent output waveguides because of the lateral distribution of alternatively vanishing and non-vanishing images. This consideration is neglected in previous work and is shown to be important for achieving good uniformity MMI power splitters. Thirdly, a new design of silica-on-silicon multimode interference (MMI) device is proposed. Deeply etched air trenches define the boundaries of the multimode section to achieve strong lateral confinement, resulting in lower loss and imbalance. The access waveguides, however, are buried channel and square core, giving low fibre insertion loss and low polarization dependence. The novel design balanced requirement of the strong lateral confinement of the field in the multimode waveguides and the matching between the fiber and the access waveguides. Then a new approach of designing silica-on-silicon optical switches based on cascaded MMI couplers is presented. The approach combines the transfer matrix method, optimisation of the MMI dimensions, and mode propagation analysis (MPA) for calculation of phase shifts. The feasibility of the large port count switches is also discussed. It is shown that the good performance devices can be realized with a large port count of 32. Finally MMI couplers based on silica-on-silicon optical waveguides were fabricated. The Ge-doped silica waveguides were fabricated by HC-PECVD and RIE. Fabrication processes such as thin film deposition and etching are discussed. Good performance devices have been realized

Semiconductor ring lasers for high speed communications

The work described in this thesis is aimed at exploring the possibility of optically integrating an OTDM transmitter operating at 4X10Gb/s on an appropriate substrate. It has been shown that such an OTDM transmitter system could be integrated on III-V semiconductor quantum well (QW) substrates if the design of the substrate, the choice of fabrication techniques and the design of the devices are carefully considered. Suitable device structures for the three main kinds of devices involved in OTDM transmitters, namely light source, optical multiplexers (couplers) and optical modulators, have been discussed. Significant progress regarding these aspects, both theoretical and experimental, has been achieved. In this work, it has been intended to investigate all the devices from the integration point of view. This has been reflected in many aspects in the device design and fabrication process. Integration has always been a very important factor to consider in the determination of substrate material structure, device configuration, waveguide structure and fabrication techniques. As a result, the devices developed in this project are suitable for the proposed purpose of an integrated OTDM transmitter system. Investigation into integration techniques has also been carried out. The most important was to introduce bandgap difference on a semiconductor QW material. IFVD technique is studied and produced some encouraging results such as the extended cavity SRL, which integrates an active section with a passive MMI coupler. Vertically coupled waveguide structures have also been invstigated in an attempt to produce extended cavity lasers. The design considerations of extended cavity lasers employing this waveguide structure have been discussed

Co-Package Technology Platform for Low-Power and Low-Cost Data Centers

We report recent advances in photonic–electronic integration developed in the European research project L3MATRIX. The aim of the project was to demonstrate the basic building blocks of a co-packaged optical system. Two-dimensional silicon photonics arrays with 64 modulators were fabricated. Novel modulation schemes based on slow light modulation were developed to assist in achieving an efficient performance of the module. Integration of DFB laser sources within each cell in the matrix was demonstrated as well using wafer bonding between the InP and SOI wafers. Improved semiconductor quantum dot MBE growth, characterization and gain stack designs were developed. Packaging of these 2D photonic arrays in a chiplet configuration was demonstrated using a vertical integration approach in which the optical interconnect matrix was flip-chip assembled on top of a CMOS mimic chip with 2D vertical fiber coupling. The optical chiplet was further assembled on a substrate to facilitate integration with the multi-chip module of the co-packaged system with a switch surrounded by several such optical chiplets. We summarize the features of the L3MATRIX co-package technology platform and its holistic toolbox of technologies to address the next generation of computing challenges

Photonic logic-gates: boosting all-optical header processing in future packet-switched networks

Las redes ópticas de paquetes se han convertido en los últimos años en uno de los temas de vanguardia en el campo de las tecnologías de comunicaciones. El procesado de cabeceras es una de las funciones más importantes que se llevan a cabo en nodos intermedios, donde un paquete debe ser encaminado a su destino correspondiente. El uso de tecnología completamente óptica para las funciones de encaminamiento y reconocimiento de cabeceras reduce el retardo de procesado respecto al procesado eléctrico, disminuyendo de ese modo la latencia en el enlace de comunicaciones. Existen diferentes métodos de procesado de datos para implementar el reconocimiento de cabeceras. El objetivo de este trabajo es la propuesta de una nueva arquitectura para el procesado de cabeceras basado en el uso de puertas lógicas completamente ópticas. Estas arquitecturas tienen como elemento clave el interferómetro Mach-Zehnder basado en el amplificador óptico de semiconductor (SOA-MZI), y utilizan el efecto no lineal de modulación cruzada de fase (XPM) en los SOAs para realizar dicha funcionalidad. La estructura SOA-MZI con XPM es una de las alternativas más atractivas debido a las numerosas ventajas que presenta, como por ejemplo los requisitos de baja energía para las señales de entrada, su diseño compacto, una elevada relación de extinción (ER), regeneración de la señal y el bajo nivel de chirp que introducen. Este trabajo se ha centrado en la implementación de la funcionalidad lógica XOR. Mediante esta función se pueden realizar diversas funcionalidades en las redes ópticas. Se proponen dos esquemas para el reconocimiento de cabeceras basados en el uso de la puerta XOR. El primer esquema utiliza puertas en cascada. El segundo esquema presenta una arquitectura muy escalable, y se basa en el uso de un bucle de realimentación implementado a la salida de la puerta. Asimismo, también se presentan algunas aplicaciones del procesado de cabeceras para el encaminamiento de paquetes basadas en el uso dMartínez Canet, JM. (2006). Photonic logic-gates: boosting all-optical header processing in future packet-switched networks [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/1874Palanci

Metamateriales sub-longitud de onda para microdispositivos fotónicos de altas prestaciones

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, leída el 28-04-2020Photonics has become of paramount importance in many areas of our everyday life owing to its inherent potential to develop not only telecom and datacom solutions, but also many other applications such as metrology [DeMiguel’18], energy generation and saving [Polman’12, Miller’17], spectrometry [Velasco’13a], sensing [Rodríguez-Barrios’10], medicine [Morgner’00] and industrial manufacturing [Malinauskas’16], to name a few. Particularly, integrated optics has attracted increasing industrial attention and scientific efforts to implement photonic integrated circuits (PICs) capable of tackling all abovementioned tasks in compact and efficient systems.Among all the available materials, silicon photonics leverages the maturity of the fabrication techniques reached by the microelectronics industry, enabling cost-effective mass production [Chen’18]. Different material platforms with a high refractive index contrast have been proposed for silicon photonics to achieve higher integration levels and perform more complex functions in a single chip, such as silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and silicon nitride (Si3N4, commonly simplified to SiN). The increased integration capacity of silicon photonics has enabled to tackle one of our greatest technological challenges: global data traffic inside data centers. Besides short-range optical interconnects for telecom and datacom applications, the progress in silicon photonics also encompasses many other untapped applications that are being explored by academia and industry: absorption spectroscopy and bio-sensing [Herrero-Bermello’17, Wangüemert-Pérez’19], light detection and ranging (LIDAR) [Poulton’17a], quantum computing [Harris’16], microwave and terahertz photonics [Marpaung’19, Harter’18], nonlinear optics [Leuthold’10], and many others...La fotónica ha adquirido una importancia fundamental en muchos ámbitos de nuestra vida cotidiana debido a su potencial intrínseco para desarrollar soluciones no sólo en el campo de las telecomunicaciones y las interconexiones de corto alcance, sino también en otras muchas áreas como la metrología [DeMiguel’18], la generación de energía [Polman’12, Miller’17], la espectrometría [Velasco’13a], la detección [Rodríguez-Barrios’10], la medicina [Morgner’00] y la fabricación industrial [Malinauskas’16]. En particular, la óptica integrada ha atraído tanto la atención de la industria como los esfuerzos científicos para implementar circuitos fotónicos integrados (PICs, Photonic Integrated Circuits) capaces de abordar todas las tareas mencionadas anteriormente en sistemas compactos y eficientes. Entre todos los materiales disponibles, la fotónica de silicio aprovecha la madurez de las técnicas de fabricación alcanzadas por la industria de la microelectrónica, permitiendo una producción en masa rentable [Chen’18]. Para maximizar su densidad de integración y poder realizar funciones más complejas en un único chip, diferentes plataformas materiales con un alto contraste de índice de refracción se han propuesto, como por ejemplo las plataformas de silicio sobre aislante (SOI, Silicon-On-Insulator) y de nitruro de silicio (Si3N4, comúnmente simplificada a SiN, Silicon Nitride). Esta mayor densidad de integración ha permitido abordar uno de nuestros mayores desafíos tecnológicos hasta la fecha: el tráfico de datos global dentro de los centros de datos. Además de las interconexiones ópticas de corto alcance, el progreso de la fotónica de silicio también comprende muchas otras aplicaciones inexploradas que están siendo estudiadas en el ámbito académico e industrial como, por ejemplo, la espectroscopía de absorción y biodetección [Herrero-Bermello’17, Wangüemert-Pérez’19], LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) [Poulton’17a], computación cuántica [Harris’16], fotónica de microondas y terahercios [Marpaung’19, Harter’18], óptica no lineal [Leuthold’10], y muchas otras...Fac. de Ciencias FísicasTRUEunpu

Dispositivos fotónicos con base sol-gel y de silicio

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Departamento de Óptica, leída el 01/07/2013Depto. de ÓpticaFac. de Ciencias FísicasTRUEunpu

Tunable Silicon integrated photonics based on functional materials

This thesis is concerned with the design, fabrication, testing and development of tunable silicon photonic integrated circuits based on functional materials. This tunability is achieved by integrating liquid crystals, 2D materials and chalcogenide phase-change materials with silicon and silicon nitride integrated circuits. Switching the functional materials between their various states results in dramatic changes in the optical properties, with consequent changes in the optical response of the individual devices. Furthermore, such changes are volatile or non-volatile depending on the materials.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC