High-speed Optical Interconnects Research Articles

High-speed carbon nanotube photodetector based on a planarized silicon waveguide

The integration of silicon waveguides with low-dimensional materials with excellent optoelectronic properties can enable compact and highly integrated optical devices with multiple advantages for multiple fields. A carbon nanotube (CNT) photodetector integrated on the silicon waveguide has the potential to meet on-chip high-speed optical interconnection systems, based on the outstanding properties of CNTs such as picosecond-level intrinsic photoresponse time, high charge carrier mobility, broad spectral response, high absorption coefficient, and so on. However, the thermal stability of the device may be compromised due to the local suspension in the channel for the height difference between the WG and the substrate. Here, we report a low-cost and low-optical-loss method to achieve the planarized silicon waveguide. After that, the CNT photodetectors integrated on the original and planarized waveguide with asymmetric palladium (Pd)-hafnium (Hf) metal contacts are fabricated. The influence of this planarization method on the performance of devices is analyzed via comparing the dark leakage current, the leakage current rectification ratio (CRR), the series resistances (R S ), and the photoelectric response. Finally, a CNT photodetector based on the planarized waveguide with a photocurrent (Iph) ∼510.84nA, a photoresponsivity (R I ) ∼51.04mA/W, the dark current ∼0.389µA, as well as a 3 dB bandwidth ∼34GHz at the large reverse voltage −3V is shown.

Single wavelength MDM-PDM 800-Gb/s net data rate transmission over a standard multimode fiber employing a Kramers-Kronig receiver.

We propose a high-speed multimode fiber short-reach optical interconnect system based on a Kramers-Kronig (KK) field reconstruction with the mode division multiplexing (MDM) and polarization division multiplexing (PDM) technology. In this work, the LP01, LP21a, LP21b, and LP02 modes are selected as independent channels to carry information. The demonstration achieved the 800 Gb/s net data rate per wavelength with a bit-rate-distance-product (BDP) of 8 Tb/s·km. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest experimental record of a single wavelength BDP over the SMMF with KK detection. In addition, we discuss the system performance after all multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and partial MIMO processing and give guidance on the trade-off between system performance and computational resource.

Revealing the ultrafast spontaneous emission in plasmon-enhanced monolayer semiconductor nano-light sources

Nanoscale spontaneous light sources are promising alternatives to lasers for high-speed optical communications and interconnections through energy-efficient integrated circuits. Yet, developing the spontaneous light sources faster than lasers is hampered by the detection means (e.g., time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy). Here, by coupling monolayer WSe2 to individual plasmonic nanocavities, we achieved an efficient spontaneous light source with potential ultrafast modulation bandwidth and superior brightness. The ultrafast radiative decay rates can be determined and derived solely from the experimental parameters by combining the coupling strength and the photoluminescence enhancement in a single nanocavity-WSe2 hybrid. As a result, the hybrid light source has a radiative lifetime down to 350 fs, indicating a potential modulation bandwidth up to 440 GHz, which is 10 times of the traditional semiconductor lasers. Furthermore, the quantum yield is enhanced by a factor of over 300-folds up to 20.8% through making full use of the highly confined nanocavity mode. The nanocavity-WSe2 hybrid we built provides a promising approach for constructing high-speed light-emitting devices.

Two fiber-bundle-type FI/FO devices of low insertion loss and cross talk applied for connecting 13-core 5-mode fiber.

Two fiber-bundle-typed fan-in/fan-out (FI/FO) devices, "wavy hexagon-shaped silhouette" type (W-FI/FO) and "tortoise-shaped silhouette" type (T-FI/FO), have been proposed and manufactured based on tapering glass tubes for docking with a self-made 13-core 5-mode fiber. The W-FI/FO device consists of 19 5-mode fibers and has an extended layout based on the 13-core 5-mode fiber structure. It could dock multiple fibers with 19 or 13 cores of the same size standards. When connecting it with 13-core 5-mode, the average losses (ILs) of its five modes are 1.07 dB, 2.95 dB, 3.42 dB, 3.65 dB, and 4.38 dB. The cross talks of the five linearly polarized (LP) modes are -69.1 dB, -64.7 dB, -44.2 dB, -43.9 dB, and -39.1 dB. The T-FI/FO device has a similar core arrangement to the 13-core 5-mode fiber and its average ILs of the five LP modes are 0.23 dB, 1.31 dB, 2.09 dB, 2.66 dB, and 3.03 dB. The cross talks of its five LP modes between adjacent cores are -72.8 dB, -67.8 dB, -43.6 dB, -40.0 dB, and -35.3 dB. The IL and cross talk of the LP01 mode are of satisfactory values, which are 0.23 dB and -72.8 dB, respectively. These two proposed FI/FO devices are expected to be used for high-speed optical interconnection and fiber communication.

VCSEL Cavity Loss and Gain Measurement for High-Speed Optical Interconnects

Over 100 Gb/s Four-level Pulse-Amplitude Modulation (PAM4) Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) based optical interconnects require high speed, damped, and low relative intensity noise (RIN) VCSELs. Measurement techniques for intrinsic parameters are essential for optimizing VCSEL designs. The proposed VCSEL cavity round-trip loss and gain coefficient measurement provides the insight of VCSEL distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) and quantum well (QW) design. A simple VCSEL cavity model is described and excellent matching between the model and measurement is achieved.

Optical printed circuit boards with multimode polymer waveguides and pluggable connectors for high-speed optical interconnects.

We demonstrate the development of optical printed circuit boards (OPCBs) containing multimode polymer waveguides and pluggable optical connectors. The basic optical characteristics of the PCB-embedded waveguides, waveguide connectors, and high-speed performance were comprehensively evaluated. The fabricated OPCB comprises eight electrical layers and one optical layer. Waveguides are terminated at both ends with MT/MPO connectors. The optical channels comprising 10 cm-long waveguides embedded in OPCBs with two connectors show an average insertion loss of 6.42 dB. The resulting coupling loss is 0.77 dB per interface, which is very low and to our knowledge is among the lowest reported to date for waveguides embedded in rigid PCBs. 30 Gbps per channel NRZ data transmission was demonstrated with a measured waveguide bandwidth of 23 GHz × m, which gives a possible data traffic of 720 Gb/s for such 24-channel parallel optical link. Our efforts lay the foundation for the further development of OPCBs with higher performance.

Generation of high-speed PAM-4 signal with 3-bit DAC enabled by CRD-NS in optical interconnect.

In this paper, we experimentally demonstrated a 2-km high-speed optical interconnection with pulse-shaped pre-equalized four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) signal generated by a 3-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) with the aid of in-band quantization noise suppression techniques under different oversampling ratios (OSRs) to reduce the influence of quantization noise. The simulation results show that the quantization noise suppression capability of high computational complexity digital resolution enhancer (DRE) is sensitive to taps number of the estimated channel and match filter (MF) response when OSR is sufficient, which will lead to further significant computational complexity increase. To better accommodate this issue, channel response-dependent noise shaping (CRD-NS) which also takes channel response into consideration when optimizing quantization noise distribution is proposed to suppress the in-band quantization noise instead of DRE. Experimental results show that about 2 dB receiver sensitivity improvement can be achieved at the hard-decision forward error correction (HD-FEC) threshold for 110 Gb/s pre-equalized PAM-4 signal generated by 3-bit DAC when the traditional NS technique is replaced by the CRD-NS technique. Compared to the high computational complexity DRE technique, in which channel response is also considered, negligible receiver sensitivity penalty is observed for 110 Gb/s PAM-4 signal, when the CRD-NS technique is utilized. Considering both the system cost and bit error ratio (BER) performance, the generation of high-speed PAM signal with 3-bit DAC enabled by the CRD-NS technique is regarded as a promising scheme for optical interconnection.

Silica micro-rod resonator-based Kerr frequency comb for high-speed short-reach optical interconnects.

Conventional data center interconnects rely on power-hungry arrays of discrete wavelength laser sources. However, growing bandwidth demand severely challenges ensuring the power and spectral efficiency toward which data center interconnects tend to strive. Kerr frequency combs based on silica microresonators can replace multiple laser arrays, easing the pressure on data center interconnect infrastructure. Therefore, we experimentally demonstrate a bit rate of up to 100 Gbps/λ employing 4-level pulse amplitude modulated signal transmission over a 2 km long short-reach optical interconnect that can be considered a record using any Kerr frequency comb light source, specifically based on a silica micro-rod. In addition, data transmission using the non-return to zero on-off keying modulation format is demonstrated to achieve 60 Gbps/λ. The silica micro-rod resonator-based Kerr frequency comb light source generates an optical frequency comb in the optical C-band with 90 GHz spacing between optical carriers. Data transmission is supported by frequency domain pre-equalization techniques to compensate amplitude-frequency distortions and limited bandwidths of electrical system components. Additionally, achievable results are enhanced with offline digital signal processing, implementing post-equalization using feed-forward and feedback taps.

2.4-Tb/s/λ*km fundamental mode transmission over OM2 fiber employing Kramers-Kronig receiver.

We propose a digital-carrier Kramers-Kronig (DC-KK) scheme based high-speed multimode fiber short-reach optical interconnect system with fundamental mode transmission. After optimization of the parameters, including the roll-off factor of the root-raised-cosine (RRC) filter, and the guard interval (GI) between signal and carrier tone, as well as the carrier signal power ratio (CSPR), 200-Gb/s 32-quadrature amplitude modulation (32QAM) signal transmission over 12-km OM2 fiber has been experimentally demonstrated with a bit error ratio (BER) below the soft-decision forward error correction (SD-FEC) threshold of 4 × 10-2. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest experimental record of single lambda bitrate-distance-product (SLBDP) achieved by direct-detection (DD)-based transmission over a standard multimode fiber (MMF). The proposed scheme has potential to improve the system performance without replacing massive deployed legacy MMFs for future large-capacity data center interconnects (DCIs).

Silicon Waveguide-Integrated Carbon Nanotube Photodetector with Low Dark Current and 48 GHz Bandwidth.

Low-dimensional materials with excellent optoelectronic properties and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process compatibility have the potential to construct high-performance photodetectors used in a cost-efficient monolithic or hybrid integrated optical communication system. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted a lot of attention due to special geometric structure and broad band response, high optical absorption coefficient, ps-level intrinsic light response, high carrier mobility and wafer-scaled production process. Here, we demonstrated a high-performance waveguide-integrated CNT photodetector with asymmetric palladium (Pd) and hafnium (Hf) contact electrodes. The ideal photodetector structure was realized via comparing with simulation and experimental results, where the optimized device achieved a high 3 dB bandwidth ∼48 GHz at 0 V, as well as a responsivity ∼73.62 mA/W and dark current ∼0.157 μA at -2 V bias voltage. This waveguide-integrated CNT photodetector with low dark current and high bandwidth is helpful for next-generation optical communication and high-speed optical interconnects.

Direct ink writing 3D-printed optical waveguides for multi-layer interconnect.

Low-cost, short-range optical interconnect technology plays an indispensable role in high-speed board-level data communications. In general, 3D printing technology can easily and quickly produce optical components with free-form shapes, while the traditional manufacturing process is complicated and time-consuming. Here, we present a direct ink writing 3D-printing technology to fabricate optical waveguides for optical interconnects. The waveguide core is 3D printed optical polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) polymer, with propagation loss of 0.21 dB/cm at 980 nm, 0.42 dB/cm at 1310 nm, and 1.08 dB/cm at 1550 nm, respectively. Furthermore, a high-density multilayer waveguide arrays, including a four-layer waveguide arrays with a total of 144 waveguide channels, is demonstrated. Error-free data transmission at 30 Gb/s is achieved for each waveguide channel, indicating that the printing method can produce optical waveguides with excellent optical transmission performance. We believe this simple, low-cost, highly flexible, and environmentally friendly method has great potential for high-speed short-range optical interconnects.

Ultrafast Carbon Nanotube Photodetectors with Bandwidth over 60 GHz

The future interconnect links in intra- and inter-chip require the photodetector with high bandwidth, ultra-wide waveband, compact footprint, low-cost, and compatible integration process with silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Here, we demonstrate a CMOS-compatible carbon nanotube (CNT) photodetector that exhibits high responsivity, high bandwidth and broad spectral operation over all optical telecommunication band based on high-purity CNT arrays. The ultrafast CNT photodetector demonstrates the 100 Gbit/s Nyquist-shaped on-off-keying (OOK) signal transmission, which can address the demand for high-speed optical interconnects in and between data centers. Furthermore, the photodetector exhibits a bandwidth over 60 GHz by scaling down the active area to 20 {\mu}m2. As the CNT photodetectors are fabricated by doping-free process, it also provides a cost-effective solution to integrate CNT photonic devices with CNT-based CMOS integrated circuits. Our work paves a way for future CNT-based high-speed optical interconnects and optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs).

Aluminum Nitride Thin Film Based Reconfigurable Integrated Photonic Devices

In the past few decades, silicon photonics with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility has been well developed and successfully applied to commercial products. Due to the demand for high-fidelity and high-speed optical interconnect, high-resolution sensing, and information processing, hybrid integrating more existing materials to improve performance or introduce novel functionalities with post-CMOS technology becomes essential. Aluminum nitride (AlN) is a popular piezoelectric material widely investigated in the field of Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS). It has been studied and integrated into photonic integrated circuits (PICs) utilizing the mechanics at micro/nano scale in recent years. Here, we review the recent development of AlN thin film properties and processing. The AlN piezoelectric MEMS transducer technologies are then described, including flexural, surface acoustic wave (SAW), Lamb wave resonators (LWR), and bulk acoustic wave (BAW). After that, photonic devices on hybrid Si-AlN and pure AlN thin film platforms are presented. Finally, the outlooks and perspectives of AlN thin film based reconfigurable integrated photonics are provided.

The electro-optic spatial light modulator of lithium niobate metasurface based on plasmonic quasi-bound states in the continuum.

Metasurface has attracted massive interest owing to its ability to control light arbitrarily in a wide range of applications, such as high-speed imaging, optical interconnection, and spectroscopy. Here we propose a free space light modulator combined with a gold grating metasurface based on lithium niobate (LiNbO3). The quasi-bound states in the continuum (quasi-BIC) are achieved in the metasurface. In addition, the plasmonic quasi-BIC and the guided-mode resonance (GMR) can be modulated by controlling the polarization of the incident light without any geometric adjustment. Thus, the working wavelength range from 1480 nm to 1620 nm was achieved, and the maximum resonance depth reached about 51% at the resonant wavelength. In addition, the insertion loss of the device was -2.8 dB at a wavelength of 1510 nm. Furthermore, the dynamic modulation speed reached up to 190 MHz and the highest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) could reach about 49 dB at a frequency of 65 MHz. The data showed potential for the material for applications such as near-infrared imaging, beam steering, and free-space optical communication links.

128 Gbit/s high speed optical interconnection networks in data centers by a 30 GHz Mach-Zehnder modulator

128 Gbit/s high speed optical interconnection networks in data centers by a 30 GHz Mach-Zehnder modulator

Performance of DSP-assisted gray-coded DP-16-QAM Nyquist-DWDM super-channel transceiver for high-speed long-haul optical interconnects

Performance of DSP-assisted gray-coded DP-16-QAM Nyquist-DWDM super-channel transceiver for high-speed long-haul optical interconnects

Four-channel CWDM transmitter chip based on thin-film lithium niobate platform

Multi-lane integrated transmitter chips are key components in future compact optical modules to realize high-speed optical interconnects. Thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonics have emerged as a promising platform for achieving high-performance chip-scale optical systems. Combining a coarse wavelength-division multiplexing (CWDM) devices using fabrication-tolerant angled multimode interferometer structure and high-performance electro-optical modulators, we demonstrate monolithic on-chip four-channel CWDM transmitter on the TFLN platform for the first time. The four-channel CWDM transmitter enables high-speed transmissions of 100 Gb/s data rate per wavelength channel (i.e., an aggregated date rate of 400 Gb/s).

High-speed performance evaluation of ultra-flexible polymer waveguides supporting meter-scale optical interconnects.

We demonstrate bandwidth measurement and high-speed data transmission of meter-scale connectorized ultra-flexible multimode waveguide links with a maximum length of 180 cm. The pulses propagating through the waveguides broadened linearly with the increase of the length from 20 cm to 240 cm and the estimated mode delay from the pulse broadening was 0.093 ps/cm. The corresponding waveguide bandwidth decreased inversely with the increase of waveguide length, leading to a bandwidth-length product of 42 GHz·m. Degradation in bandwidth due to the introduction of bending or twisting was small when the samples were bent with a bending radius as small as 1 mm for 3 turns or twisted for 4 full turns, respectively. Error-free transmission of 30 Gb/s non-return-to-zero (NRZ) signal was achieved with a record link length up to 140 cm to the best of our knowledge. Our results show that the demonstrated flexible waveguides have both excellent optical and mechanical properties and are ideal for high-speed optical interconnects application especially those have a strict requirement on flexibility.

SDM-WDM ROADM Based on Direct-Laser-Writing SDM Core Separator

Weakly-coupled space division multiplexing (SDM) techniques based on multi-core fibers (MCF) have attracted great attention for the capacity enhancement of optical interconnect systems and networks. In this paper, we propose a novel direct-laser-writing (DLW) core separator device and apply it in a reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) structure for two-dimensional SDM and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) switching. The proposed core separator matching an 8-core MCF is fabricated. Then assisted with MCF rotators, independent adding and dropping functionalities for arbitrary core are experimentally demonstrated with slight power penalty for both core and wavelength dimensions. The influence of crosstalk for cascading core separators is also investigated and below 0.35-dB receiving sensitivity penalty is obtained when three cores are dropped one by one. The compact DLW core separators can reduce the complexity of SDM nodes and will be beneficial for high-speed optical interconnects.

Characterization of DFB Laser and its high-speed optical interconnection at 4 K and room temperature

In this article, an optical interconnection system from low temperature (4 K) to room temperature was built based on a conventional Distributed Feedback Laser. The curves of P–I–V and the spectra of Distributed Feedback Laser were characterized from 296K to 4K. The laser spectrum had a significant blue shift from 296 K to 4 K, the bandwidth of 16.18 GHz and 12 Gbps eye diagram was achieved.