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Transceivers based on electro-absorption modulators are considered as a promising candidate for the next generation 400 GbE short-reach optical networks. They are capable of combining high bandwidth and low-power operation with a very compact layout, removing the need for traveling wave electrodes and dedicated 50 Ω termination. In this paper we demonstrate the first silicon-based EAM, in combination with an in-house developed SiGe BiCMOS transceiver chipset, capable of transmitting single-lane 100 Gb/s non-return-to-zero in realtime. Transmission up to 500 m of standard single mode fiber and 2 km of non-zero dispersion shifted fiber is demonstrated, assuming a forward-error coding scheme with a bit-error rate limit of 3.8×10 −3 is used. Due to the high line rate, transmission over longer fiber spans was limited by the chromatic distortion in the fiber. As a possible solution, electrical duobinary modulation is proposed as it is more resilient to this type of fiber distortion by reducing the required optical bandwidth. We show improved performance for longer fiber spans with a 100 Gb/s electrical duobinary link, resulting in real-time sub-FEC operation over more than 2 km of standard single-mode fiber without any digital signal processing. Finally, the possibility of a 100 Gb/s EAM-to-EAM link is investigated.

Abstract:We report waveguide-integrated Ge electro-absorption modulators operating at 1615nm wavelength with 3dB bandwidth beyond 50GHz and a capacitance of 10fF. A 2V voltage swing enables 4.6dB DC extinction ratio for 4.1dB insertion loss.

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