Abstract
By utilizing two cascaded all-silicon opto-mechanical microring resonators (MRRs), an energy-efficient optical diode with high nonreciprocal transmission ratios (NTRs) is proposed and experimentally realized. The optical diode is composed of an all-pass opto-mechanical MRR and an add-drop opto-mechanical MRR. Due to the largely enhanced interaction between the photons and the suspended structure, the opto-mechanical effect can be dramatically improved. With injecting low optical powers, the optical gradient force can be effectively aroused in the opto-mechanical MRRs, which would arise nano-meter scale waveguide deformations and the significant spectrum red-shifts of the rings. The opto-mechanical effect would cause different red-shifts of the two MRR resonances in the forward and backward transmissions, which contributes to realizing the nonreciprocal transmissions. The experimental results show that with −4.2 dBm power consumption, the optical diode can achieve high NTRs approach 41.8 dB. Due to the dominant advantages of complementary metal oxide semiconductor (COMS) compatibility, high NTRs (41.8 dB), low power consumption (−4.2 dBm) and compact size (0.015 mm2), the device has remarkable applications in on-chip signal processing systems.
Highlights
Optical diodes can realize unidirectional optical transmission [1]–[4], which are widely utilized for optical signal processing [5], [6]
We proposed and implemented a silicon passive optical diode using cascaded opto-mechanical microring resonators (MRRs) with high nonreciprocal transmission ratios (NTRs) and low power consumption
We used the HF acid to selectively remove the silica substrate in the released area to control the depth of the separation gap g0
Summary
Optical diodes can realize unidirectional optical transmission [1]–[4], which are widely utilized for optical signal processing [5], [6]. The power consumption of the thermo-optic effect is relatively high, which cannot meet the requirements of energy-efficient optical systems. To improve performances of the device, Liu et al adopted two cascaded free-hanging MRRs to realize a 33.6 dB NTR at low power consumption of 0.96 dBm [27], but the NTRs are supposed to be improved. We proposed and implemented a silicon passive optical diode using cascaded opto-mechanical MRRs with high NTRs and low power consumption. The proposed optical diode can experimentally achieve a high NTR approach 42 dB at 1556.89 nm with a low power of −4.2 dBm, which is significant for the on-chip energy-efficient optical signal processing
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