Athermal synchronization of laser source with WDM filter in a silicon photonics platform
Name
1.4984022.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.73 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
dfe4dc28cc2b686863cf7af04f29836f
Author(s)
Li, Nanxi
Su, Zhan
Purnawirman
Salih Magden, E
Poulton, Christopher V
Ruocco, Alfonso
Singh, Neetesh
Byrd, Matthew J
Bradley, Jonathan DB
Leake, Gerald
Date Issued
2017
Journal
Applied Physics Letters
Publisher
AIP Publishing
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2017 Author(s). In an optical interconnect circuit, microring resonators (MRRs) are commonly used in wavelength division multiplexing systems. To make the MRR and laser synchronized, the resonance wavelength of the MRR needs to be thermally controlled, and the power consumption becomes significant with a high-channel count. Here, we demonstrate an athermally synchronized rare-earth-doped laser and MRR. The laser comprises a Si3N4 based cavity covered with erbium-doped Al2O3 to provide gain. The low thermo-optic coefficient of Al2O3 and Si3N4 and the comparable thermal shift of the effective index in the laser and microring cross-sections enable lasing and resonance wavelength synchronization over a wide range of temperatures. The power difference between matched and unmatched channels remains greater than 15 dB from 20 to 50 °C due to a synchronized wavelength shift of 0.02 nm/°C. The athermal synchronization approach reported here is not limited to microring filters but can be applied to any Si3N4 filter with integrated lasers using rare earth ion doped Al2O3 as a gain medium to achieve system-level temperature control free operation.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4984022
