Four-stage cascaded variable optical attenuator with large attenuation range for quantum key distribution

A four-stage cascaded variable optical attenuator(VOA)with a large attenuation range is presented.The VOA is based on a Mach–Zehnder interferometer(MZI)and fabricated in a silica-based planar lightwave circuit(PLC)platform.The thermo-optic effect is used to achieve intensity modulation.The measured maximum attenuation of the four-stage cascaded VOA is 88.38 d B.The chip is also tested in a quantum key distribution(QKD)system to generate signal and decoy states.The mean photon number after attenuation of the four-stage cascaded VOA is less than 0.1,which can meet the requirement of QKD.

Temperature characterizations of silica asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometer chip for quantum key distribution

Quantum key distribution(QKD)system based on passive silica planar lightwave circuit(PLC)asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometers(AMZI)is characterized with thermal stability,low loss and sufficient integration scalability.However,waveguide stresses,both intrinsic and temperature-induced stresses,have significant impacts on the stable operation of the system.We have designed silica AMZI chips of 400 ps delay,with bend waveguides length equalized for both long and short arms to balance the stresses thereof.The temperature characteristics of the silica PLC AMZI chip are studied.The interference visibility at the single photon level is kept higher than 95%over a wide temperature range of 12℃.The delay time change is 0.321 ps within a temperature change of 40℃.The spectral shift is 0.0011 nm/0.1℃.Temperature-induced delay time and peak wavelength variations do not affect the interference visibility.The experiment results demonstrate the advantage of being tolerant to chip temperature fluctuations.

The 8×10 GHz Receiver Optical Subassembly Based on Silica Hybrid Integration Technology for Data Center Interconnection

An 8×10 GHz receiver optical sub-assembly （ROSA） consisting of an 8-channel arrayed waveguide grating （AWG） and an 8-channel PIN photodetector （PD） array is designed and fabricated based on silica hybrid integration technology. Multimode output waveguides in the silica AWG with 2% refractive index difference are used to obtain fiat-top spectra. The output waveguide facet is polished to 45° bevel to change the light propagation direction into the mesa-type PIN PD, which simplifies the packaging process. The experimentM results show that the single channel I dB bandwidth of AWG ranges from 2.12nm to 3.06nm, the ROSA responsivity ranges from 0.097 A/W to 0.158A/W, and the 3dB bandwidth is up to 11 GHz. It is promising to be applied in the eight-lane WDM transmission system in data center interconnection.

Improved Performance of a Wavelength-Tunable Arrayed Waveguide Grating in Silicon on Insulator

The improved performance of a wavelength-tunable arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) is demonstrated, including the crosstalk, insertion loss and the wavelength tuning efficiency. A reduced impact of the fabrication process on the AWG is achieved by the design of bi-level tapers. The wavelength tuning of the AWG is achieved according to the thermo-optic effect of silicon, and uniform heating of the silicon waveguide layer is achieved by optimizing the heater design. The fabricated AWG shows a minimum crosstalk of 16 dB, a maximum insertion loss of 3.91 dB and a wavelength tuning efficiency of 8.92 nm/W, exhibiting a ～8 dB improvement of crosstalk, ～2.1 dB improvement of insertion loss and ～5 nm/W improvement of wavelength tuning efficiency, compared to our previous reported results.

High efficiency,small size,and large bandwidth vertical interlayer waveguide coupler

Since the advent of three-dimensional photonic integrated circuits,the realization of efficient and compact optical interconnection between layers has become an important development direction.A vertical interlayer coupler between two silicon layers is presented in this paper.The coupling principle of the directional coupler is analyzed,and the traditional method of using a pair of vertically overlapping inverse taper structures is improved.For the coupling of two rectangular waveguide layers,a pair of nonlinear tapers with offset along the transmission direction is demonstrated.For the coupling of two ridge waveguide layers,a nonlinear taper in each layer is used to achieve high coupling efficiency.The simulation results show that the coupling efficiency of the two structures can reach more than 90%in a wavelength range from 1500 nm to 1650 nm.Moreover,the crosstalk is reduced to less than-50 d B by using multimode waveguides at intersections.The vertical interlayer coupler with a nonlinear taper is expected to realize the miniaturization and dense integration of photonic integrated chips.

Realization of simultaneous balanced multi-outputs for multi-protocols QKD decoding based onsilica-based planar lightwave circuit

Silica-based planar lightwave circuit(PLC)devices can reduce transmission loss and cost in a quantum key distribution(QKD)system,and have potential applications in integration and production.A PLC-based quantum decoding integrated chip for multi-protocols is designed and fabricated,which is composed of variable optical splitters(VOSs),asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometers(AMZIs),and variable directional couplers(VDCs).Balanced pulse-pairs of four outputs are obtained simultaneously with measured delay times of 405 ps and 402 ps,respectively.The chip has advantages in achieving high interference visibility and low quantum bit error rate(QBER).

16-channel dual-tuning wavelength division multiplexer/demultiplexer

A 16-channel dual tuning wavelength division multiplexer/demultiplexer based on silicon on insulator platform is demonstrated, which is both peak wavelength tunable and output optical power tunable. The wavelength division multiplexer/demultiplexer consists of an arrayed waveguide grating for wavelength division multiplexing/demultiplexing, a heater for peak wavelength tuning and a variable optical attenuator based on p–i–n carrier-injection structure for optical power tuning. The experimental results show that the insertion loss on chip of the device is 3.7 dB–5.7 dB and the crosstalk is 7.5 dB–9 dB. For the tunability of the peak wavelength, 1.058-nm wavelength tunability is achieved with 271.2-mW power consumption, and the average modulation efficiency is 3.9244 nm/W; for the tunability of the optical power, the optical power equalization is achieved in all 16 channels, 20-dB attenuation is achieved with 144.07-mW power consumption,and the raise/fall time of VOA is 35 ns/42 ns.

Quantum key distribution transmitter chip based on hybrid-integration of silica and lithium niobates

A quantum key distribution transmitter chip based on hybrid-integration of silica planar light-wave circuit(PLC)and lithium niobates(LN)modulator PLC is presented.The silica part consists of a tunable directional coupler and 400-ps delay line,and the LN part is made up of a Y-branch,with electro-optic modulators on both arms.The two parts are facet-coupled to form an asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer.We successfully encode and decode four BB84 states at 156.25-MHz repetition rate.Fast phase-encoding of 0 orπis achieved,with interference fringe visibilities 78.53%and 82.68%for states|+〉and|-〉,respectively.With the aid of an extra off-chip LN intensity modulator,two time-bin states are prepared and the extinction ratios are 18.65 dB and 15.46 dB for states|0〉and|1〉,respectively.

Polarization-insensitive interferometer based on a hybrid integrated planar light-wave circuit

Interferometers are essential elements in classical and quantum optical systems.The strictly required stability when extracting the phase of photons is vulnerable to polarization variation and phase shift induced by environment disturbance.Here,we implement polarization-insensitive interferometers by combining silica planar light-wave circuit chips and Faraday rotator mirrors.Two asymmetric interferometers with temperature controllers are connected in series to evaluate the single-photon interference.Average interference visibility over 12 h is above 99%,and the variations are less than 0.5%,even with active random polarization disturbance.The experiment results verify that the hybrid chip is available for high-demand applications like quantum key distribution and entanglement measurement.

1.3-μm 4×25-Gb/s hybrid integrated TOSA and ROSA

The design and fabrication of a compact and low-cost 4×25-Gb/s transmitter optical sub-assembly(TOSA) and receiver optical sub-assembly(ROSA) using a hybrid integrated technique are reported. TOSA and ROSA are developed without thermoelectric cooler for coarse wavelength division multiplexing applications. Physical dimension of the packaged optical subassembly is limited to 11.5 mm×5.4 mm×5.4 mm. The design of TOSA and ROSA is employed using a silica-based arrayed waveguide grating chip to select the specific channel wavelength at O-band. In TOSA, the wavelength of four 1.3-μm discrete directly modulated laser chips is well controlled based on the reconstruction equivalent chirp technique. In the back-to-back transmission test, bit error rates for all lanes of cascade of the TOSA and ROSA are small. A clear opening eye diagram is obtained.