Continuous Wavelength Conversion of 40-Gb/s Data Over 100 nm Using a Dispersion-Engineered Silicon Waveguide

Abstract

Abstract-We demonstrate broadband continuous wavelength conversion based on four-wave mixing in silicon waveguides, operating with data rates up to 40 Gb/s, validating signal integrity using bit-error-rate measurements. The dispersion-engineered silicon waveguide provides broad phase-matching bandwidth, enabling complete wavelength-conversion coverage of the -, -, and -bands of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) grid. We experimentally show this with wavelength conversion of high-speed data exceeding 100 nm, and characterize the resulting power penalty induced by the wavelength conversion process. We then validate the bit-rate transparency of the all-optical process by scaling the data rate from 5 Gb/s up to 40 Gb/s at the 100-nm wavelength conversion configuration, showing consistent low power penalties, validating the robustness of the four-wave mixing process in the silicon platform for all-optical processing.Index Terms-Optical frequency conversion, optical Kerr effect, optical signal processing, silicon-on-insulator technology.

Nonlinear properties of and nonlinear processing in hydrogenated amorphous silicon waveguides

“…Indeed, in recent years a lot of progress has been made in this field and nonlinear optical functions such as wavelength conversion [1,2], supercontinuum generation [3] and parametric gain [4] have been demonstrated. However, the significant nonlinear absorption at telecom wavelengths [5] in crystalline silicon, the two-photon absorption (TPA), has limited the efficiency of these nonlinear devices enormously.…”

Continuously Tunable Wavelength Conversion of Data with Record Probe-Idler Separations in a Silicon Nanowire

“…To enable operation outside of these well-developed bands, gain elements have to become available with either different gain materials (such as thulium) or through parametric amplification, most commonly achieved with highly-nonlinear fibers [1]. As the operational band continues to expand, broadband flexible parametric processing platforms will be required to provide energy-efficient manipulation of light for a variety of communication functionalities such as wavelength conversion, multicasting, temporal demultiplexing, and signal regeneration [2][3][4][5].…”

Continuous wave-pumped wavelength conversion in low-loss silicon nitride waveguides

“…A receiver penalty of 0.8 dB of converted data with respect to back-to-back (b2b) transmission can be seen. In comparison to data conversion in other platforms such as Si, where dispersionengineered waveguides have been used [22], in our experiments the high normal dispersion significantly limits our conversion bandwidth. However, the waveguide dimensions in our design have not been optimized for high bandwidth wavelength conversion.…”