Design Guidelines for a Tunable SOI Based Optical Isolator in a Partially Time-Modulated Ring Resonator

Abstract

In this paper, we present the design guidelines for a tunable optical isolator in an SOI-based ring resonator with two small time-modulated regions. By considering a physical model, the proper geometrical and modulation parameters are designed, based on a standard CMOS foundry process. The effect of the variation of the key parameters on the performance of the isolator is explained by two counter-acting mechanisms, namely the separation between the resonance frequencies of counterrotating modes and energy transfer to the side harmonic. We show that there is a trade-off between these parameters to obtain maximum isolation. Consequently, by applying the quadrature phase difference one can obtain the maximum separation between the resonance frequencies and hence the minimum insertion loss, while the maximum isolation is obtained at the modulation phase difference of −0.78π, which leads to a higher insertion loss. Robustness of the design is investigated through a sensitivity analysis for the fabrication variations in the distance and width of the modulated regions. We demonstrate that there is a tradeoff between isolation and insertion loss, and by varying the modulation parameters, we can achieve isolation of 18 (5) dB with 7 (1.8) dB insertion loss.