Abstract
Silicon photonics is the guiding of light in a planar arrangement of silicon-based materials to perform various functions. We focus here on the use of silicon photonics to create transmitters and receivers for fiber-optic telecommunications. As the need to squeeze more transmission into a given bandwidth, a given footprint, and a given cost increases, silicon photonics makes more and more economic sense.
Highlights
Until circa 2002, fiber-optic communication for metropolitan distances (80—600 km) and longhaul distances (600–15,000 km) employed mostly simple on-off keying (OOK) transmission
While these silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers are what makes low-loss silicon photonic waveguides possible, they are used mostly for low-power complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits, because of the low leakage currents they offer
One is the surface-emitting grating coupler, as shown in Figure 7A [5, 6]. It consists of a strong grating in the waveguide with a pitch approximately equal to the wavelength in the waveguide. This causes light to emit or be received vertical to the surface, which is well-suited for wafer level measurements and/or coupling to an optical fiber
Summary
Until circa 2002, fiber-optic communication for metropolitan distances (80—600 km) and longhaul distances (600–15,000 km) employed mostly simple on-off keying (OOK) transmission. I.e., a lower bit-error rate (BER) for the same received optical power and/or for the same optical signal-tonoise ratio (OSNR), can be obtained by using phase-modulated formats, such as binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) or quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK). In today’s coherent CFP, there is a single silicon photonic (SiPh) integrated circuit (PIC) containing both the transmitter and receiver [4]. A dominant cost for the DSP and optics is the packaging; one can further reduce cost, power, and footprint by co-packaging the DSP and optics Such transceivers are expected in 2–3 years. The main advantages of photonic integration are a small footprint, due to strongly confining waveguides and lens-free connections between parts; low power, due to an obviation of 50- RF lines; higher bandwidth RF connections; and low price, due to fewer touch points, no mechanical adjustments, less test equipment, and less material. The main disadvantages of PICs are typically a higher insertion loss and the inability to optimize components independently
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