Strain-Compensated InGaAsP Superlattices for Defect Reduction of InP Grown on Exact-Oriented (001) Patterned Si Substrates by Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition.

We report on the use of InGaAsP strain-compensated superlattices (SC-SLs) as a technique to reduce the defect density of Indium Phosphide (InP) grown on silicon (InP-on-Si) by Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD). Initially, a 2 μm thick gallium arsenide (GaAs) layer was grown with very high uniformity on exact oriented (001) 300 mm Si wafers; which had been patterned in 90 nm V-grooved trenches separated by silicon dioxide (SiO₂) stripes and oriented along the [110] direction. Undercut at the Si/SiO₂ interface was used to reduce the propagation of defects into the III-V layers. Following wafer dicing; 2.6 μm of indium phosphide (InP) was grown on such GaAs-on-Si templates. InGaAsP SC-SLs and thermal annealing were used to achieve a high-quality and smooth InP pseudo-substrate with a reduced defect density. Both the GaAs-on-Si and the subsequently grown InP layers were characterized using a variety of techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD); atomic force microscopy (AFM); transmission electron microscopy (TEM); and electron channeling contrast imaging (ECCI); which indicate high-quality of the epitaxial films. The threading dislocation density and RMS surface roughness of the final InP layer were 5 × 10⁸/cm² and 1.2 nm; respectively and 7.8 × 10⁷/cm² and 10.8 nm for the GaAs-on-Si layer

Amplifier-free slab-coupled optical waveguide optoelectronic oscillator systems.

We demonstrate a free-running 3-GHz slab-coupled optical waveguide (SCOW) optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) with low phase-noise (-120 dBc/Hz at 1-kHz offset) and ultra-low sidemode spurs. These sidemodes are indistinguishable from noise on a spectrum analyzer measurement (88 dB down from carrier). The SCOW-OEO uses high-power low-noise SCOW components in a single-loop cavity employing 1.5-km delay. The noise properties of our SCOW external-cavity laser (SCOWECL) and SCOW photodiode (SCOWPD) are characterized and shown to be suitable for generation of high spectral purity microwave tones. Through comparisons made with SCOW-OEO topologies employing amplification, we observe the sidemode levels to be degraded by any amplifiers (optical or RF) introduced within the OEO cavity

Low-noise RF-amplifier-free slab-coupled optical waveguide coupled optoelectronic oscillators: physics and operation

We demonstrate a 10-GHz RF-amplifier-free slab-coupled optical waveguide coupled optoelectronic oscillator (SCOW-COEO) system operating with low phase-noise (-115 dBc/Hz at 1 kHz offset) and large sidemode suppression (70 dB measurement-limited). The optical pulses generated by the SCOW-COEO exhibit 26.8-ps pulse width (post compression) with a corresponding spectral bandwidth of 0.25 nm (1.8X transform-limited). We also investigate the mechanisms that limit the performance of the COEO. Our measurements indicate that degradation in the quality factor (Q) of the optical cavity significantly impacts COEO phase-noise through increases in the optical amplifier relative intensity noise (RIN)

Integrated Photonics for NASA Applications

No abstract availabl

Coherent integrated receiver for highly linear microwave photonic links

Phase modulation can be used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and spurfree dynamic range (SFDR) of microwave photonic links because phase modulation is not limited in input modulation swing and is inherently linear using certain electro-optic devices. Traditional interferometer-based phase demodulators have a sinusoidal response therefore a novel approach is required for achieving linear coherent detection at the receive end of a photonic link employing phase modulation. In this work, a balanced receiver with feedback to a reference tracking phase modulator was developed. With sufficient feedback loop gain, the received signal phase is closely tracked and the phase detection falls within the linear regime of the interferometer response. For stable operation at high frequency the delay of the feedback loop must be kept short, therefore a monolithic approach is required to realize a compact receiver architecture. The monolithic photonic integrated circuit (PIC) developed here consists of a high power balanced uni-traveling-carrier photodiode (UTC-PD), a compact 2x2 multimode interference (MMI) coupler, and multi-quantum well reference phase modulators. This PIC is hybrid integrated with an electronic IC that provides transconductance amplification of the feedback signal for increased loop gain. Novel concepts such as charge compensation, partially depleted absorption, and absorption profile modification were incorporated into the design of the waveguide UTCPDs resulting in record output saturation current and linearity. Both general interference surface ridge (SR) MMI couplers and restricted interference deep ridge (DR) MMI couplers were explored, the latter for reducing the loop delay. Current injection tuning was incorporated into the MMI couplers for fine tuning the output power splitting ratio. The quantum well design of the reference phase modulators was optimized for realizing low Vπ, low insertion loss, low absorption modulation, and improved linearity. Second generation integrated receivers incorporated quantum well intermixing (QWI) to eliminate the tradeoff between phase modulation efficiency and passive loss. Using a first generation SR coherent receiver in a link experiment, the demonstrated SFDR for signal frequencies of 300 MHz, 500 MHz, and 1 GHz was 125 dB˙Hz2/3, 121 dB˙Hz2/3, and 113 dB˙Hz2/3 respectively. Using a second generation DR coherent receiver with QWI for low passive loss, and more efficient phase modulators, the projected SFDR was improved by 6 dB

Versatile offset-free 16-QAM single dual-drive IQ modulator driven by binary signals

A customized IQ modulator driven by equal-amplitude binary signals for generating offset-free 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is proposed and validated through simulations. The incorporation of tunable splitters demonstrates the feasibility of the transmitter and enables more efficient constellations such as hexagonal 16-QAM