BER in Slow-Light and Fast-Light Regimes of Silicon Photonic Crystal Waveguides: A Comparative Study

Abstract

In this letter, we present an in-depth comparison between the bit-error ratio (BER) of optical systems containing silicon photonic crystal (Si-PhC) waveguides (Si-PhCWs) operating in the slow- and fast-light regimes. Our analysis of these optical interconnects employs the time domain Karhunen–Loève expansion method for the statistical analysis of the optical signal and relies on a full theoretical model and its linearized form to describe the propagation of noisy optical signals in Si-PhCWs. These models incorporate all key linear and nonlinear optical effects and the mutual interaction between free-carriers and the optical field, as well as the influence of slow-light effects on the optical field and carriers dynamics. Using these tools and employing a 512-b pseudorandom bit sequence, we have studied the dependence of BER on the key system parameters, including group-velocity, input power, and signal-to-noise ratio.