Low-power thermooptical tuning of SOI resonator switch

Abstract

Abstract-A wavelength selective optical switch is developed based on a high-racetrack resonator making use of the large thermooptic coefficient of silicon. The racetrack resonator was fabricated using a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) single-mode rib waveguide. The resonator shows a high factor of 38 000 with spectral sidelobes of 11 dB down and can be thermooptically scanned over its full free-spectral range applying only 57 mW of electrical power. A low power of 17 mW is enough to tune the device from resonance to off-resonance state. The device functions as a wavelength selective optical switch with a 3-dB cutoff frequency of 210 kHz.

Picosecond optically reconfigurable filters exploiting full free spectral range tuning of single ring and Vernier effect resonators

“…By actively tuning the resonance wavelength, tunable wavelength filters, modulators and switches can be created. Mechanisms for resonator tuning have been widely researched and proposed mechanisms include electro-optic tuning [2,3], thermo-optic tuning [4][5][6], as well as exploiting the Kerr-effect [7,8] and plasma dispersion. Plasma dispersion, i.e.…”

Optical reconfigurable demultiplexer based on Bragg grating assisted ring resonators

“…This technology permits the maximum integration due to its high refractive index contrast. These WDM switches have applications working individually [3], or as part of optical multiplexers/demultiplexers [4], optical routers and optical cross connects [5]. Nevertheless, because of its periodic transfer function the number of channels they can switch is limited by its free spectral range (FSR).…”

“…This optical path change can be done by means of the thermo-optic effect [3,9], or by mean of electro-optical effects like electric field or charge carrier effects [10][11][12]. To save energy it has been designed structures with free standing waveguides with undercut structures [13] highly efficient, which significantly reduces the tuning power.…”

Trimming of silicon ring resonator by electron beam induced compaction and strain

“…In practice the resonance wavelength shifts exceed 1 nm, which is unacceptable for many applications. The most common solution for this is active thermal tuning [4], however, when many resonators have to be integrated on a single chip, this would lead to high power consumption and important device complexity. Another approach to circumvent these process variations is trimming of the devices after fabrication.…”