Hybrid MZI-SOA InGaAs/InP photonic integrated switches

Minsheng Ding, Adrian Wonfor, Qixiang Cheng, Richard V. Penty, Ian H. White

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

A low-power, high-performance integrated 4 × 4 hybrid Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) optical switch is designed, fabricated, and characterized. The 4 mm × 6 mm device is fabricated using an active-passive integration scheme in an InGaAsP/InP foundry. MZIs are implemented as the main switching elements and short switchable SOAs are used to either compensate the loss or suppress the crosstalk. A dilated Beneš architecture is implemented to reduce the crosstalk and offer rearrangeably nonblocking connections. The 4 × 4 switch exhibits a low 1.3-dB loss, a crosstalk ratio of -47 dB, and more than 13-dB input power dynamic range (IPDR) for a 0.5-dB power penalty at a 10-Gb/s signal rate. By active control of injection currents into the SOAs, a fixed output power is achieved for a 10-dB range of input power and the IPDR is extended by at least 4 dB. A 12-mA control current tolerance has been demonstrated for a 10-dB IPDR. The performance of a 16 × 16 switch is emulated by cascading two 4 × 4 chips. A record IPDR of 15 dB at a 1-dB penalty is achieved with a 0.6-dB power penalty floor.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8063924
JournalIEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics
Volume24
Issue number1
Early online date10 Oct 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2018

Funding

Manuscript received April 7, 2017; revised June 28, 2017 and August 31, 2017; accepted September 26, 2017. Date of publication October 10, 2017; date of current version October 24, 2017. This work was supported in part by the U.K. EPSRC SwiTching and tRansmission (STAR) Project EP/K018116/1 and FP7 PARADIGM Project. Additional data related to this publication is available at https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.13398. (Corresponding author: Minsheng Ding.) The authors are with the Centre for Photonic Systems, Electrical Engineering Division, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0FA, U.K. (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]).

Keywords

  • indium compounds
  • Integrated optics
  • optical switches

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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