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Is Silicon Photonics a Competitive Technology to Enable Better and Highly Performing Networks?

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Silicon Photonics III

Part of the book series: Topics in Applied Physics ((TAP,volume 122))

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the fundamental and high-speed characteristics of small-footprint integrated optical modulators designed and fabricated on the basis of the silicon-photonic platform to assess their key performance factors in applications related to high-capacity energy-efficient optical networks transmitting data in various modulation formats. The design and characteristics of high-speed silicon rib-waveguide phase shifters, which are most essential in the high-speed optical modulators, are described. A low-loss quasi-single-mode silicon rib-waveguide phase shifter with reduced RC delay is highlighted along with its design features and fundamental performances in terms of optical loss and on/off dynamic response. Free-carrier plasma dispersion is reviewed as a physical process for performing optical modulation, which allows a reduction in thermal drift and frequency chirping. The plasma dispersion has a unique property in that signal distortion due to residual intensity modulation cancels with the nonlinear voltage dependence of the optical phase, thereby being useful for zero-chirp optical modulators to eliminate transmission impairments. The on-off keying performance of a silicon optical modulator using a single Mach–Zehnder interferometer waveguide is described in the first example of optical network applications with emphasis on a 10-Gb/s dispersion tolerance comparable to that of a commercial lithium niobate modulator. The advantage of silicon-photonic integration is remarkable, in particular, for the ultrasmall-footprint silicon optical modulator consisting of a pair of IQ nested Mach–Zehnder interferometers for two orthogonal polarization components and a polarization multiplexer monolithically integrated on a silicon chip. Such a chip is presented with respect to applications in digital coherent communication in optical-fiber links up to 1000 km long at a bit rate as high as 128 Gb/s.

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  1. Advanced Technology Laboratory, Fujikura Ltd, 1440 Mutsuzaki, Sakura, Chiba, 285-8550, Japan

    Kensuke Ogawa & Kenji Nishide

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  1. Kensuke Ogawa
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  2. Kenji Nishide
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Correspondence to Kensuke Ogawa .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Nanoscience Laboratory, University of Trento, Department of Physics, Povo, Italy

    Lorenzo Pavesi

  2. Measurement Science and Standards, National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    David J. Lockwood

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Ogawa, K., Nishide, K. (2016). Is Silicon Photonics a Competitive Technology to Enable Better and Highly Performing Networks?. In: Pavesi, L., Lockwood, D. (eds) Silicon Photonics III. Topics in Applied Physics, vol 122. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10503-6_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10503-6_16

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