Si-waveguide-based optical power monitoring of a 2 × 2 Mach–Zehnder interferometer based on a InGaAsP/Si hybrid MOS optical phase shifter

Abstract

Transparent in-line optical power monitoring in Si programmable photonic integrated circuits (PICs) is indispensable for calibrating integrated optical devices such as optical switches and resonators. A Si waveguide (WG) photodetector (PD) based on defect-mediated photodetection is a promising candidate for a transparent in-line optical power monitor, owing to its simplicity and ease of integration with a fully complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible process. Here, we propose a simple optical power monitoring scheme for a 2 × 2 Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) optical switch based on InGaAsP/Si hybrid MOS optical phase shifters. In the proposed scheme, a low-doped p-type Si WG PD with a response time of microseconds is utilized as a transparent in-line optical power monitor, and the ground terminal of the MOS optical phase shifter is shared with that of the Si WG PD to enable the simple monitoring of the output optical power of the MZI. Based on this scheme, we experimentally demonstrate that the output optical power of a 2 × 2 MZI can be simply monitored by applying a bias voltage to the Si slabs formed at the output WGs of the MZI without excess optical insertion loss.