On-chip photonic integrated circuit structures for millimeter and terahertz wave signal generation

We present two different on-chip photonic integrated circuit (PIC) structures for continuous-wave generation of millimeter and terahertz waves, each one using a different approach. One approach is the optical heterodyne method, using an on-chip arrayed waveguide grating laser (OC-AWGL) which is capable of generating a carrier at 110 GHz within the F-Band (90 GHz-140 GHz). The other structure provides the pulsed source method based on an on-chip colliding pulse mode-locked laser diode (OC-CPML), which is capable of generating a carrier at 70 GHz within the E-Band (60 GHz-90 GHz). A novel building block multimode interference reflector (MIR) is used to integrate on-chip both structures, without need of cleaved facets to define the laser cavity. This fact enables us to locate any of these structures at any location within the photonic integrated chip. Both types of structures have been fabricated on a generic InP foundry in a commercial multi-project wafer (MPW) run PIC technology.