Silicon Based Nonlinear Optical Signal Processing

This Spotlight reviews the recent progress in chip-scale optical signal processing based on silicon photonics platforms. Topics include wavelength conversion and signal regeneration based on degenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) in a silicon waveguide; two types of wavelength conversion via amplitude modulation; four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) signal regeneration; high-speed optical binary logic and high-base computing; and hybrid computing functions. The book describes how to implement an optical data exchange based on the parametric depletion effect of a non-degenerate FWM process. The role of resonant structures and graphene in silicon waveguide devices to enhance nonlinear interactions is also discussed.

This book provides an updated description of the most relevant types of highly nonlinear fibers. It also describes some of their actual applications for nonlinear optical signal processing. Multiple types of highly nonlinear fibers are considered, such as silica-based conventional highly nonlinear fibers, tapered fibers, photonic crystal fibers, and fibers made of highly nonlinear materials, namely lead-silicate, tellurite, bismuth oxide, and chalcogenide glasses. Several nonlinear phenomena occurring on such highly nonlinear fibers are described and used to realize different functions in the area of all-optical signal processing.  Describes several nonlinear phenomena occurring on optical fibers, namely nonlinear phase modulation, parametric and stimulated scattering processes, optical solitons, and supercontinuum generation.  Discusses different types of highly nonlinear fibers, namely silica-based conventional highly nonlinear fibers, tapered fibers, and photonic crystal fibers.  Examines fibers made of highly nonlinear materials, namely lead-silicate, tellurite, bismuth oxide, and chalcogenide glasses.  Describes the application of several nonlinear phenomena occurring on highly nonlinear fibers to realize different functions in the area of all-optical signal processing, namely optical amplification, multiwavelength sources, pulse generation, optical regeneration, wavelength conversion, and optical switching. Mário F. S. Ferreira received his PhD degree in 1992 in physics from the University of Aveiro, Portugal, where he is now a professor in the Physics Department. Between 1990 and 1991, he was at the University of Essex, UK, performing experimental work on external cavity semiconductor lasers and nonlinear optical fiber amplifiers. His research interests have been concerned with the modeling and characterization of multisection semiconductor lasers, quantum well lasers, optical fiber amplifiers and lasers, soliton propagation, nanophotonics, optical sensors, polarization, and nonlinear effects in optical fibers. He has written more than 400 scientific journal and conference publications and several books in the area of mathematical physics, optics, and photonics. He has served as chair and committee member of multiple international conferences, as well as guest editor and advisory board member of several international journals.

The main objective of this book is to make respective graduate students understand the nonlinear effects inside SOI waveguide and possible applications of SOI waveguides in this emerging research area of optical fibre communication. This book focuses on achieving successful optical frequency shifting by Four Wave Mixing (FWM) in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide by exploiting a nonlinear phenomenon.

This book provides an updated description of the most relevant types of highly nonlinear fibers. It also describes some of their actual applications for nonlinear optical signal processing. Multiple types of highly nonlinear fibers are considered, such as silica-based conventional highly nonlinear fibers, tapered fibers, photonic crystal fibers, and fibers made of highly nonlinear materials, namely lead-silicate, tellurite, bismuth oxide, and chalcogenide glasses. Several nonlinear phenomena occurring on such highly nonlinear fibers are described and used to realize different functions in the area of all-optical signal processing.  Describes several nonlinear phenomena occurring on optical fibers, namely nonlinear phase modulation, parametric and stimulated scattering processes, optical solitons, and supercontinuum generation.  Discusses different types of highly nonlinear fibers, namely silica-based conventional highly nonlinear fibers, tapered fibers, and photonic crystal fibers.  Examines fibers made of highly nonlinear materials, namely lead-silicate, tellurite, bismuth oxide, and chalcogenide glasses.  Describes the application of several nonlinear phenomena occurring on highly nonlinear fibers to realize different functions in the area of all-optical signal processing, namely optical amplification, multiwavelength sources, pulse generation, optical regeneration, wavelength conversion, and optical switching. Mário F. S. Ferreira received his PhD degree in 1992 in physics from the University of Aveiro, Portugal, where he is now a professor in the Physics Department. Between 1990 and 1991, he was at the University of Essex, UK, performing experimental work on external cavity semiconductor lasers and nonlinear optical fiber amplifiers. His research interests have been concerned with the modeling and characterization of multisection semiconductor lasers, quantum well lasers, optical fiber amplifiers and lasers, soliton propagation, nanophotonics, optical sensors, polarization, and nonlinear effects in optical fibers. He has written more than 400 scientific journal and conference publications and several books in the area of mathematical physics, optics, and photonics. He has served as chair and committee member of multiple international conferences, as well as guest editor and advisory board member of several international journals.

Processing of high-speed data using optical signals is a promising approach for tackling the bandwidth and speed challenges of today's electronics. Realization of complex optical signal processing functionalities seems more possible than any time before, thanks to the recent achievements in silicon photonics towards large-scale photonic integration. In this Ph. D. work, a novel thermal reconfiguration technology is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for silicon photonics that is compact, low-loss, low-power, fast, with a large tuning-range. These properties are all required for large-scale optical signal processing and had not been simultaneously achieved in a single device technology prior to this work. This device technology is applied to a new class of resonator-based devices for reconfigurable nonlinear optical signal processing. For the first time, we have demonstrated the possibility of resonance wavelength tuning of individual resonances and their coupling coefficients. Using this new device concept, we have demonstrated tunable wavelength-conversion through four-wave mixing in a resonator-based silicon device for the first time.

This comprehensive and didactic overview explores the nonlinear effects from a physical point of view and discusses the implications for signal capacity. Enriched with practical considerations and experimental results, the book offers special chapters dealing with applications of nonlinear effects for signal processing, ultrafast-optical switching, wavelength conversion, nonlinear amplification, and optical phase-conjugation. Equipped with chapter-end summaries and problems, this valuable reference can also serve as a graduate-level textbook.

High index-contrast nanophotonic devices are key components for future board-to-board and chip-to-chip optical interconnects: The strong confinement of light enables dense integration, and nonlinear effects can be exploited at low power levels. Cheap large-scale production is possible by using highly parallel microfabrication techniques, and semiconductor-based nanophotonic devices can be integrated together with electronic circuitry on a common chip. Particularly intense research is carried out to realise optical devices on silicon substrates, using mature complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication techniques.This book discusses the modelling, fabrication and characterization of linear and nonlinear nanophotonic devices. Roughness-related scattering loss in high index-contrast waveguides is investigated both theoretically and experimentally, and methods of loss reduction are developed. Novel silicon-based devices for electro-optic modulation and for all-optical signal processing are presented. Nonlinear dynamics in active quantum-dot devices are studied, and resonant field enhancement is exploited to improve the efficiency of nonlinear interaction.

Both approaches were fabricated and characterized and demonstrate relatively large delays (up to 65 ps) in discrete steps (from 15 ps to 32 ps) over wide bandwidths (from 35 nm to 70 nm), however they require further optimization. All-optical signal processing and optical devices presented in this thesis provide building blocks and indicate future steps that can lead toward fully integrated OTDM demultiplexer in SOI." --

"Processing of high speed optical signals in the optical domain, referred to as optical signal processing, is required for many applications in the telecommunication systems and networks. Many optical signal processing techniques have been studied in the literature where most of them are based on nonlinear optics such as 2nd order and 3rd order nonlinear effects. A wide range of nonlinear media are used for performing these nonlinear optical signal processing applications such as optical fibres, semiconductor optical amplifiers, and different types of optical waveguides. In this thesis, we use nonlinear optics to perform nonlinear optical signal processing and microwave photonics applications. First we propose and experimentally demonstrate an optical signal processing module that will be used for recognition of spectral amplitude code (SAC) labels in optical packet-switched networks. We use the nonlinear effect FWM in a highly nonlinear fibre (HNLF) for generation of a unique FWM idler for each SAC label referred to as a label identifier (LI). A serial array of fibre Bragg gratings is then used to reflect the LI wavelengths. Each LI is associated with a unique amount of delay between two optical signals received at two photodiodes. Label recognition is then achieved by measuring this unique time delay. An experiment is conducted where two variable-length data packets are transmitted over a 50-km dispersion-compensated span of fibre and switched at a forwarding node. The SAC labels are successfully recognized, and we obtain error-free transmission for the switched packets with less than 0.3-dB penalty. Then using FWM in a HNLF and also a programmable planar lightwave circuit (PLC) we propose and experimentally demonstrate the all-optical reconfigurable time slot interchange (TSI) of individual bits at 40 Gb/s. The PLC is used to generate different control signals (masks) that determine which bits undergo TSI. By programming the PLC to generate two different masks, two different TSI patterns are obtained. TSI is achieved using FWM between the data signal and the desired mask with bidirectional propagation in the HNLF. Error-free operation is obtained for both of the TSI patterns, with a power penalty of less than 5.2 dB, at a bit error rate of 10-9.Next, we use a low-stress silicon-rich nitride waveguide as the nonlinear medium to perform two different applications based on XPM. The waveguide is engineered to display flat and low dispersion over the entire C+L bands. First, we demonstrate wavelength conversion of 10 Gb/s signals across the C band and obtain error free operation. We also demonstrate ultra broadband wavelength conversion over 300 nm from the O-band to the L-band. Second, we highlight the use of SixNy waveguides for nonlinear MWP. We report the first demonstration of an XPM-based radio-frequency (RF) spectrum analyzer of optical signals using an integrated silicon nitride waveguide. Measurements show a bandwidth of at least 560 GHz for our RF-spectrum analyzer. RF-spectra measurements for pulse trains at rates from ~ 10 GHz to ~ 160 GHz are demonstrated. These results show that the silicon nitride technology has a competitive performance for realizing high-speed optical processing of telecom signals." --

This book provides an updated description of the most relevant types of highly nonlinear fibers. It also describes some of their actual applications for nonlinear optical signal processing. Multiple types of highly nonlinear fibers are considered, such as silica-based conventional highly nonlinear fibers, tapered fibers, photonic crystal fibers, and fibers made of highly nonlinear materials, namely lead-silicate, tellurite, bismuth oxide, and chalcogenide glasses. Several nonlinear phenomena occurring on such highly nonlinear fibers are described and used to realize different functions in the area of all-optical signal processing.  Describes several nonlinear phenomena occurring on optical fibers, namely nonlinear phase modulation, parametric and stimulated scattering processes, optical solitons, and supercontinuum generation.  Discusses different types of highly nonlinear fibers, namely silica-based conventional highly nonlinear fibers, tapered fibers, and photonic crystal fibers.  Examines fibers made of highly nonlinear materials, namely lead-silicate, tellurite, bismuth oxide, and chalcogenide glasses.  Describes the application of several nonlinear phenomena occurring on highly nonlinear fibers to realize different functions in the area of all-optical signal processing, namely optical amplification, multiwavelength sources, pulse generation, optical regeneration, wavelength conversion, and optical switching. Mário F. S. Ferreira received his PhD degree in 1992 in physics from the University of Aveiro, Portugal, where he is now a professor in the Physics Department. Between 1990 and 1991, he was at the University of Essex, UK, performing experimental work on external cavity semiconductor lasers and nonlinear optical fiber amplifiers. His research interests have been concerned with the modeling and characterization of multisection semiconductor lasers, quantum well lasers, optical fiber amplifiers and lasers, soliton propagation, nanophotonics, optical sensors, polarization, and nonlinear effects in optical fibers. He has written more than 400 scientific journal and conference publications and several books in the area of mathematical physics, optics, and photonics. He has served as chair and committee member of multiple international conferences, as well as guest editor and advisory board member of several international journals.