Silicon opto-electronic wavelength tracker based on an asymmetric 2x3 Mach-Zehnder Interferometer

Abstract

[EN] In this paper we report on the experimental demonstration of a Silicon-on-Insulator opto-electronic wavelength tracker for the optical telecommunication C-band. The device consist of a 2x3 Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) with 10 pm resolution and photo-detectors integrated on the same chip. The MZI is built interconnecting two Multimode Interference (MMI) couplers with two waveguides whose length difference is 56 mm. The first MMI has a coupling ratio of 95:05 to compensate for the propagation loss difference corresponding to the 56 mm. The wavelength tracker design provides three complementary, with 120◦ phase relations, responses. The MZI optical responses exhibit rejection as good as 15 dB, thanks to asymmetric design for the input coupler. Synchronized recorded DC electronic responses for the three photo-detector outputs reproduce the MZI de-phased characteristic, allowing for monitoring wavelength changes with sign.The authors acknowledge financial support by the Spanish CDTI NEOTEC start-up programme, the Spanish MICINN project TEC2010-21337, acronym ATOMIC, the Spanish MINECO project TEC2013-42332-P, acronym PIC4ESP, project FEDER UPVOV 10-3E-492 and project FEDER UPVOV 08-3E-008. B. Gargallo acknowledges financial support through FPI grant BES-2011-046100. J.S. Fandiño acknowledge financial support through FPU grant AP2010-1595.Doménech Gómez, JD.; Sánchez Fandiño, JA.; Gargallo Jaquotot, BA.; Baños López, R.; Muñoz Muñoz, P. (2014). Silicon opto-electronic wavelength tracker based on an asymmetric 2x3 Mach-Zehnder Interferometer. Waves. 6(1):29-34. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/56989S29346