Lossless WDM PON Photonic Integrated Receivers Including SOAs

Goki Goki,Toccafondo Toccafondo,Fresi Fresi,Imran Imran,Cavaliere Cavaliere,Potì Potì,Porzi Porzi

doi:10.3390/app9122457

Abstract

The role of a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) for amplifying downstream traffic at optical network terminals (ONT) within a silicon-photonics integrated receiver in a high capacity passive optical network (PON) is investigated. The nearly traveling wave SOA effects are evaluated by considering fabrication and link loss constraints through numerical analysis and experimental validation. The impact of hybrid integration of a SOA chip on a silicon on insulator (SOI) photonic chip using the flip chip bonding technique on SOA design is evaluated through numerical analysis of a multi section cavity model. The performance of the proposed ONT receiver design employing twin parallel SOAs is evaluated experimentally on a 32 × 25 Gb/s OOK WDM transmission system considering cross gain modulation (XGM) and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) constraints. The XGM impact is evaluated through 32 channel wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission and a likely PON worst case scenario of high channel power difference (~10 dB) between adjacent channels. The impact of ASE is evaluated through the worst-case polarization condition, i.e., when all of the signal is coupled to only one. Successful transmission was achieved in both worst-case conditions with limited impact on performance. SOA results indicate that a maximum residual facet reflectivity of 4 × 10−4 for the chip-bonded device can lead to a power penalty below 2 dB in a polarization-diversity twin SOAs receiver.

Highlights

Technological innovations are continuously introducing novel applications that greatly influence the way humans interact, make decisions and conduct businesses
The receiver scheme with twin parallel semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) was considered: the incident signal is split into two orthogonal polarization states, transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM), and each one of them is amplified by separate SOAs
The transmission performance was evaluated under the worst case scenario, i.e., the incident signal has only one polarized state and all light is coupled to only one SOA while the twin SOA works in the absence of input signal

Summary

Introduction

Technological innovations are continuously introducing novel applications that greatly influence the way humans interact, make decisions and conduct businesses. It is estimated that traffic from wireless devices will account for more than 63 percent of total IP traffic by 2021 [1]. These applications demand enhanced capacity, coverage, low latency and high quality of service (QoS) from wireless as well as optical access networks. Optical fiber distribution networks (ODN) in already installed passive optical access networks (PON) can be exploited to cope with diverse traffic demands originated from. ONT transmitter complex modulation formats can provide higher capacity (>10 Gb/s) but keeping conventional non-return-to-zero (NRZ) modulation is a better option for low complexity and cost. Conventional PIN-TIA receivers have low sensitivity, power budget and higher.

Methods

Results

Conclusion