Silicon-based Low-Power Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer (ROADM)

We demonstrate a 1×4 coarse wavelength division-multiplexing (CWDM) planar concave grating multiplexer/demultiplexer and its application in re-configurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) system in silicon-on-insulator substrate. The wavelengths of the demonstrated concave grating multiplexer align well with the ITU-T standard. We demonstrate a prototype of ROADM comprising two such concave gratings and four wide-band thermo-optical MZI switches. Undercut technology which removes the underneath silicon substrate is adopted in optical switches in order to minimize the operation power. For all the thermal heaters, the operation voltage is smaller than 1.5 V, and the switch power is ~2.4 mW. High throughput pseudorandom binary sequence (PRBS) data transmission with up to 100 Gb/s is demonstrated, showing the high-performance ROADM functionality.

Authors:

• Junfeng Song
• Xianshu Luo
• Qing Fang
• Lianxi Jia
• Xiaoguang Tu
• Tsung-Yang Liow
• Mingbin Yu
• Guo-Qiang Lo

Keywords:

• ROADM
• Optical switch
• low power consumption
• Integrated devices.

References:

[1] H. Zimmermann, Integrated Silicon Optoelectronics, Springer, New
York, 2000.
[2] Banerjee, Y. Park, F. Clarke, H. Song, S. Yang, G. Kramer, K. Kim and B.
Mukherjee, "Wavelength-division-multiplexed passive optical network
(WDM-PON) technologies for broadband access: a review," J. Opt. Netw.
4, pp.737-758 (2005).
[3] J. Brouckaert, W. Bogaerts, P. Dumon, D. Van Thourhout, and R. Baets,
"Planar concave grating demultiplexer fabricated on a nanophotonic
silicon-on-insulator platform," J. Lightwave Technol. 25, pp.1269-1275
(2007).
[4] J. Brouckaert, G. Roelkens, S. K. Selvaraja, W. Bogaerts, P. Dumon, S.
Verstuyft, D. Van Thourhout and R. Baets, "Silicon-on-insulator CWDM
power monitor/receiver with integrated thin-film InGaAs
photodetectors," IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 21, pp.1423-1435 (2009) .
[5] Dipak Chowdhury, "Design of low-loss and polarization-insensitive
reflection grating-based planar demultiplexers," IEEE J. Sel. Top.
Quantum Electron. 6, pp.233-235 (2000).
[6] R. Doerr, M. Cappuzzo, L. Gomez, E. Chen, A. Wong-Foy, C. Ho, J. Lam,
and K. McGreer, "Planar lightwave circuit eight-channel cwd multiplexer
with <3.9-db insertion loss," J. Lightwave Technol. 23 pp.62-65 (2005).
[7] K. A. McGeer. "Theory of concave gratings on a recursive definition of
facet positions," Appl. Opt. 35, pp.5904-5910 (1996).
[8] J. Song, Q. Fang, T. Liow, H. Cai, M. Yu, G. Lo, and D. Kwong, "CWDM
Planar Concave Grating Multiplexer/Demultiplexer and Application in
ROADM," in Optical Fiber Communication Conference, OSA Technical
Digest (CD) (Optical Society of America, 2011), paper JThA020.
[9] J. Song, X. Luo, Q. Fang, T. -Y. Liow , H. Cai, M. -B. Yu, and G. -Q. Lo,
"Low Aberration Concave Grating for Re-configurable Optical Add/Drop
Multiplexer Applications," in proceedings of IEEE MWP/APMP 2011,
Singapore, 2011.
[10] J. Song, Q. Fang, X. Luo, H. Cai, T. Y. Liow, M. B. Yu, G. Q. Lo, and D.
L. Kwong, "Thermo-optical tunable planar ridge microdisk resonator in
silicon-on-insulator," Opt. Express 19, pp. 11220 (2011)
[11] Q. Fang, J. Song, T.-Y. Liow, H. Cai, M. B. Yu, G. Q. Lo, D.-L. Kwong;
"Ultralow Power Silicon Photonics Thermo-Optic Switch With
Suspended Phase Arms," IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 23, pp.525-527
(2011)
[12] J. Song, Q. Fang, S. H. Tao, T. Y. Liow, M. B. Yu, G. Q. Lo, and D. L.
Kwong, "Fast and low power Michelson interferometer thermo-optical
switch on SOI," Opt. Express 16, pp.15304-15311 (2008).