Optical Digital to Analog Converter Based on Microring Switches

Author

Jianfeng Ding ; Fanfan Zhang ; Weiwei Zhu ; Ping Zhou ; Qiaoshan Chen ; Lei Zhang ; Lin Yang

Author_Institution

State Key Lab. on Integrated Optoelectron., Inst. of Semicond., Beijing, China

Volume

26

Issue

20

fYear

2014

fDate

Oct.15, 15 2014

Firstpage

2066

Lastpage

2069

Abstract

We propose an N-bit optical digital to analog converter (DAC) based on an integrated optoelectronic circuit consisting of N microring switches and N 1 × 2 optical splitters, which can transform an N-bit electrical digital signal to an optical analog signal. As the proof of concept, a 2-bit optical DAC is fabricated in the silicon-on-insulator platform by CMOS-compatible process. The 2-bit electrical digital signal is firstly converted to two electrical analog signals and then employed to modulate the two microring switches through the electric-field-induced carrier injection in forward biased PIN diodes embedded in the ring waveguides. The analog optical output is detected at the output port of the circuit. A 2-bit optical DAC operating at 100 Mbps is demonstrated.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; digital-analogue conversion; integrated optics; integrated optoelectronics; micro-optics; optical beam splitters; optical fabrication; optical switches; optical waveguides; p-i-n diodes; silicon-on-insulator; 2-bit optical DAC; CMOS-compatible process; N-bit electrical digital signal; N-bit optical DAC; electric-field-induced carrier injection; forward biased PIN diodes; integrated optoelectronic circuit; microring switches; optical digital-analog converter; optical splitters; ring waveguides; silicon-on-insulator platform; High-speed optical techniques; Nonlinear optics; Optical device fabrication; Optical modulation; Optical signal processing; Optical switches; Optical waveguides; Silicon photonics; microring switch; optical digital to analog converter;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2014.2346958

Filename

6876201