Photonic arbitrary waveform generator based on Taylor synthesis method.

Shasha Liao,Yunhong Ding,Siqi Yan,Xu Wang,Jianji Dong,Xinliang Zhang

doi:10.1364/oe.24.024390

Abstract

Arbitrary waveform generation has been widely used in optical communication, radar system and many other applications. We propose and experimentally demonstrate a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) on chip optical arbitrary waveform generator, which is based on Taylor synthesis method. In our scheme, a Gaussian pulse is launched to some cascaded microrings to obtain first-, second- and third-order differentiations. By controlling amplitude and phase of the initial pulse and successive differentiations, we can realize an arbitrary waveform generator according to Taylor expansion. We obtain several typical waveforms such as square waveform, triangular waveform, flat-top waveform, sawtooth waveform, Gaussian waveform and so on. Unlike other schemes based on Fourier synthesis or frequency-to-time mapping, our scheme is based on Taylor synthesis method. Our scheme does not require any spectral disperser or large dispersion, which are difficult to fabricate on chip. Our scheme is compact and capable for integration with electronics.

Highlights

Optical arbitrary waveform generation (OAWG) attracts many attentions in recent years because it plays a critical role in many applications, such as generating optical ultra-wide band (UWB) signal [1,2], optical pulse radar [3], all optical temporal differentiator [4,5], and test of optical communication system
We propose and demonstrate a silicon on insulator (SOI) on chip optical arbitrary waveform generator based on Taylor synthesis method
We have proposed and demonstrated a photonic arbitrary waveform generator based on a silicon integrated circuit

Summary

Introduction

Optical arbitrary waveform generation (OAWG) attracts many attentions in recent years because it plays a critical role in many applications, such as generating optical ultra-wide band (UWB) signal [1,2], optical pulse radar [3], all optical temporal differentiator [4,5], and test of optical communication system. The schemes based on Fourier synthesis method usually consist of a source of optical frequency comb, spectral dispersers with high resolution and complex amplitude and phase modulation arrays. These schemes have very good performance and have been realized by different materials, such as mature fiber grating techniques [2,6,7,8], indium phosphide (InP) platform [9], silica on silicon [10,11], silicon nitride [12,13] and silicon platform [14,15,16]. Our scheme has no requirements of high frequency resolution disperser, coherent detection and large dispersion

Principle

Experimental verification

Findings

Conclusions