Ultrafast optical circuit switching for data centers using integrated soliton microcombs

Abstract

Due to the slowdown of Moore’s law, it will become increasingly challenging to efficiently scale the network in current data centers utilizing electrical packet switches as data rates grow. Optical circuit switches (OCS) represent an appealing option to overcome this issue by eliminating the need for expensive and power-hungry transceivers and electrical switches in the core of the network. In particular, optical switches based on tunable lasers and arrayed waveguide grating routers are quite promising due to the use of a passive core, which increases fault tolerance and reduces management overhead. Such an OCS-network can offer high bandwidth, low network latency and an energy-efficient and scalable data center network. To support dynamic data center workloads efficiently, however, it is critical to switch between wavelengths at nanosecond (ns) timescales. Here we demonstrate ultrafast OCS based on a microcomb and semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). Using a photonic integrated Si3N4 microcomb, sub-ns (<520 ps) switching along with the 25-Gbps non-return-to-zero (NRZ) and 50-Gbps four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) burst mode data transmission is achieved. Further, we use a photonic integrated circuit comprising an Indium phosphide based SOA array and an arrayed waveguide grating to show sub-ns switching (<900 ps) along with 25-Gbps NRZ burst mode transmission providing a path towards a more scalable and energy-efficient wavelength-switched network for data centers in the post Moore’s Law era.

Synthetically Non-Hermitian Nonlinear Wave-like Behavior in a Topological Mechanical Metamaterial

“…This is an important gap, as nonlinear systems do not obey superposition and, as such, support an ability to control the spatiotemporal allocation of energy in materials that vastly exceeds their linear counterparts (32)(33)(34) through phenomena such as self-localization (35,36), frequency conversion and dynamic tunability (37,38), and chaos (39), as well as rich interplay with finite-frequency topological states (2,23,(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45). As already suggested for Maxwell lattices in the linear regime, we envision that combining nonlinear responses with the strong localization, non-reciprocity, and the robust nature of topological protection will lead to an important expansion of the ability to tailor spatiotemporal stress, deformation, and energy fields, with application areas demonstrated for nonlinear dynamical systems ranging from impact mitigation (46) to neuromorphic (47) and ultrafast mechanoacoustic computation (48,49).…”

Predicting nonlinear dynamics of optical solitons in optical fiber via the SCPINN

“…We use the SCPINN to study the influences of these effects on pulse evolution, and predict the nonlinear dynamics of the picosecond bright and dark solitons, femtosecond two-soliton molecule and three-soliton molecule. These temporal optical solitons have applications in optical switching [39] and optical soliton sources [40]. In particular, soliton molecule have become an ideal carrier of signals in all optical soliton communication because they maintain an optimal distance between solitons, and effectively avoid the occurrence of interaction.…”

Novel Benes Network Routing Algorithm and Hardware Implementation

“…On the other hand, optical switches are transparent to the incoming signal data rates and can have similar radix (e.g., 16,32) with their EPS counterparts. In general, they have been proposed in various implementations, such as, for example, arrayed waveguide grating routers (AWGRs) in combination with microcombs [7], 4 × 4 AWGRs [8] or 8 × 8 cyclic AWGR (CAWGR)s [9], or cascades of (nested) Mach-Zehnder switches (MZS) [10]. The AWGR implementations require that the optical transmitters operate at different wavelengths.…”