A novel time-to-live countdown scheme based on asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer and Fabry-Perot semiconductor optical amplifier

We propose a novel optical time-to-live （TTL） processing scheme using asymmetric Mech-Zehnder inter-ferometer （AMZI） and Fabry-Perot semiconductor optical amplifier （FP-SOA）. AMZI transfers M TTL pulses into M-1 pulses and two residual pulses with 6-dB power difference. FP-SOA enhances the power difference between the M - 1 pulses to the residual pulses to more than 10 dB. A numerical model is established for verifying the feasibility of this scheme.

Low-loss chip-scale programmable silicon photonic processor

Chip-scale programmable optical signal processors are often used to flexibly manipulate the optical signals for satisfying the demands in various applications,such as lidar,radar,and artificial intelligence.Silicon photonics has unique advantages of ultra-high integration density as well as CMOS compatibility,and thus makes it possible to develop large-scale programmable optical signal processors.The challenge is the high silicon waveguides propagation losses and the high calibration complexity for all tuning elements due to the random phase errors.In this paper,we propose and demonstrate a programmable silicon photonic processor for the first time by introducing low-loss multimode photonic waveguide spirals and low-random-phase-error Mach-Zehnder switches.The present chip-scale programmable silicon photonic processor comprises a 1×4 variable power splitter based on cascaded Mach-Zehnder couplers(MZCs),four Ge/Si photodetectors,four channels of thermally-tunable optical delaylines.Each channel consists of a continuously-tuning phase shifter based on a waveguide spiral with a micro-heater and a digitally-tuning delayline realized with cascaded waveguide-spiral delaylines and MZSs for 5.68 ps time-delay step.Particularly,these waveguide spirals used here are designed to be as wide as 2μm,enabling an ultralow propagation loss of 0.28 dB/cm.Meanwhile,these MZCs and MZSs are designed with 2-μm-wide arm waveguides,and thus the random phase errors in the MZC/MZS arms are negligible,in which case the calibration for these MZSs/MZCs becomes easy and furthermore the power consumption for compensating the phase errors can be reduced greatly.Finally,this programmable silicon photonic processor is demonstrated successfully to verify a number of distinctively different functionalities,including tunable time-delay,microwave photonic beamforming,arbitrary optical signal filtering,and arbitrary waveform generation.

FSK Modulation Scheme for High-Speed Optical Transmission

In this paper, we describe the generation, detection, and performance of frequency-shift keying （FSK） for high-speed optical transmission and label switching. A non-return-to-zero （NRZ） FSK signal is generated by using two continuous-wave （CW） lasers, one Mach-Zehnder modulator （MZM）, and one Mach-Zehnder delay interferometer （MZDI）. An RZ-FSK signal is generated by cascading a dual-arm MZM, which is driven by a sinusoidal voltage at half the bit rate. Demodulation can be achieved on 1 bit rate through one MZDI or an array waveguide grating （AWG） demultiplexer with balanced detection. We perform numerical simulation on two types of frequency modulation schemes using MZM or PM, and we determine the effect of frequency tone spacing （FTS） on the generated FSK signal. In the proposed scheme, a novel frequency modulation format has transmission advantages compared with traditional modulation formats such as RZ and differential phase-shift keying （DPSK）, under varying dispersion management. The performance of an RZ-FSK signal in a 4 x 40 Gb/s WDM transmission system is discussed. We experiment on transparent wavelength conversion based on four-wave mixing （FWM） in a semiconductor optical amplifier （SOA） and in a highly nonlinear dispersion shifted fiber （HNDSF） for a 40 Gb/s RZ-FSK signal. The feasibility of all-optical signal processing of a high-speed RZ-FSK signal is confirmed. We also determine the receiver power penalty for the RZ-FSK signal after a 100 km standard single-mode fiber （SMF） transmission link with matching dispersion compensating fiber （DCF）, under the post-compensation management scheme. Because the frequency modulation format is orthogonal to intensity modulation and vector modulation （polarization shift keying）, it can be used in the context of the combined modulation format to decrease the data rate or enhance the symbol rate. It can also be used in orthogonal label-switching as the modulation format for the payload or the label. As an example, we propose a simple orthogonal optical label switching technique based on 40 Gb/s FSK payload and 2.5 Gb/s intensity modulated （IM） label.