All-optical logic gates using E-shaped silicon waveguides at 1.55 μm

Abstract

Owing to the advanced fabrication technology of silicon, silicon waveguides are particularly attractive for implementing all-optical signal processing devices and switches. Therefore, in this paper, a silicon-on-silica waveguide that consists of four slots arranged in the shape of the letter E is proposed to be employed as the building block for simulating fundamental all-optical logic gates, including XOR, AND, OR, NOT, NOR, NAND, and XNOR, at 1.55 μm telecommunications wavelength. The operation concept of these logic gates relies on the constructive and destructive interference that results from the phase difference induced by optical beams that are incident on the E-shaped waveguide. The performance of the target logic gates is assessed against the contrast ratio (CR) metric. The simulation results suggest that, by exploiting the E-shaped waveguides, these gates can operate with higher CR and faster speed compared to other designs.