Abstract
Silicon photonic integration is a means to produce an integrated on-chip fiber Bragg grating (FBG) interrogator. The possibility of integrating the light source, couplers, grating couplers, de-multiplexers, photodetectors (PDs), and other optical elements of the FBG interrogator into one chip may result in game-changing performance advances, considerable energy savings, and significant cost reductions. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to present a hybrid silicon photonic chip based on III–V/silicon-on-insulator photonic integration for an FBG interrogator. The hybrid silicon photonic chip consists of a multiwavelength vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser array and input grating couplers, a multimode interference coupler, an arrayed waveguide grating, output grating couplers, and a PD array. The chip can serve as an FBG interrogator on a chip and offer unprecedented opportunities. With a footprint of 5 mm×3 mm, the proposed hybrid silicon photonic chip achieves an interrogation wavelength resolution of approximately 1 pm and a wavelength accuracy of about ±10 pm. With the measured 1 pm wavelength resolution, the temperature measurement resolution of the proposed chip is approximately 0.1°C. The proposed hybrid silicon photonic chip possesses advantages in terms of cost, manufacturability, miniaturization, and performance. The chip supports applications that require extreme miniaturization down to the level of smart grains.
Highlights
A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is an optical sensor embedded within the core of a standard, single-mode optical fiber using spatially varying patterns of intense UV laser light
We propose that hybrid III–V/silicon photonic integration for an FBG interrogator with Vertical-cavity surfaceemitting lasers (VCSELs) as the light source can be achieved on an SOI platform
We proposed a hybrid silicon photonic chip based on III–V/SOI photonic integration for the arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) interrogator of FBG sensors and experimentally demonstrated its use
Summary
A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is an optical sensor embedded within the core of a standard, single-mode optical fiber using spatially varying patterns of intense UV laser light. Shifts in Bragg wavelength can be monitored by any of the following analytical instruments: spectrometer is the most important and widely used instrument in current laboratories for measuring light intensity as a function of the reflected wavelength of the FBG. This instrument has several disadvantages, including low wavelength resolution (typically in dozens of picometers) and extensive but slow interrogation; these disadvantages arise from the need to scan and sample the spectral signal to be measured. The use of hybrid silicon photonic integration allows a high level of integration and facilitates the commercial utilization of hybrid silicon photonics for FBG interrogators
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