Based on poled guest-host electro-optic (EO) polymer DR1/SU-8, a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) EO modulator operated at 1.55 μm is proposed. For achieving high response speed and high EO modulation efficiency, both waveguide structure and electrode structure are especially optimized. The impedance match and less index mismatch are achieved. The final characteristic impedance of electrode is about 49.4 Ω, and the microwave index and the light-wave index are 1.5616 and 1.6006, respectively. The device is fabricated using wet-etching technique and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching technique, and its performance is measured at 1.55 μm. Experimental results show that when the applied voltage is tuned, the modulator can be changed from ON state to OFF state. The insertion loss at ON state is 12 dB and the extinction ratio between ON and OFF states is about 10 dB. The high response speed is in nano-second level for a square-wave signal. Therefore, the modulator possesses potential applications in high-speed optical networks on chip.
Optimization and simulation are performed for a polymer four-port microring optical router with three channel wavelengths, which contains four-group basic routing elements with two different ring radii. In terms of microring resonance theory, coupled mode theory and transfer matrix method, expressions of output power of basic routing element and optical router are derived. In order to realize single-mode propagation, low optical transmission loss and phase match between microring waveguide and channel waveguide, the device parameters are optimized. With the selected three channel wavelengths of 1550 nm, 1552 nm and 1554 nm, characteristics are calculated and analyzed, including output spectrum, insertion loss and crosstalk. Simulation results indicate that the device has 12 possible I/O routing paths, the insertion losses of three channel wavelengths along their routing paths are within the range of 0.02-0.61 dB, the maximum crosstalk between the on-port along each routing path and other off-ports is less than-39 dB, and the device footprint size is ~0.13 mm2. Based on the proposed structure, through proper selection on ring radius, the routing structure can also be used for other channel wavelengths. Therefore, the designed structure shows wide applications in integrated optical networks-on-chip(NoC).
A novel 1×2 polymer electro-optic(EO)switch based on seven vertical-turning serial-coupled microrings is proposed for dropping crosstalk and obtaining flat boxlike spectrum.The device structure,theory and formulation are presented,and the microring resonance order and coupling gaps are optimized.The switching voltage of the device for obtaining crosstalk lower than 30 dB under through state is decided to be about 1.86 V.Under the operation voltages of 0 V(drop state)and 1.86 V(through state),the switching performance is characterized,and the output spectrum is analyzed.The calculation results show that the crosstalk at through state and that at drop state are 30.2 dB and 53.2 dB,respectively,while the insertion losses are 0.86 dB and 3.18 dB,respectively.Owning to the seven serial-coupled microrings resonance structure,the proposed switch reveals the favorable boxlike spectrum compared with the simple device with only one microring,and thus the crosstalk under drop state is improved from 26.8 dB to 53.2 dB.Due to the low crosstalk,this device can be used in optical networks-on-chip for signal switching and routing.
Eight-port optical routers are widely used in cluster-mesh photonic networks-on-chip(No C). By using 24 groups of cross-coupling two-ring resonators, a 1-stage 8-port polymer optical router is proposed, which can optically route 7 channel wavelength data streams along definite path in two-dimensional(2D) plane. Under the selected 7 channel wavelengths, the insertion losses along all routing paths are within 0.02-0.58 d B, the maximum crosstalk of all routing operations is less than-39 d B, and the device footprint size is about 0.79 mm2. Then, a universal novel structure and routing scheme of N-stage cascaded 8-port optical router are presented, which contains 7N channel wavelengths. Because of the good scalability in wavelength, this device shows potential application of wideband signal routing in optical No C.
A 2×2 cross/bar polymer electro-optic(EO) routing switch is proposed,which is composed of two passive channel waveguides and two active EO polymer microrings with bending radius of only 13.76 μm.Detailed structure,theory and formulation are provided to characterize the output power of the switch.For obtaining fundamental mode propagation,small bending loss and phase-matching between channel waveguide and microring resonator(MRR) waveguide,the structural parameters are optimized under the wavelength of 1550 nm.Analyses and simulations on output power and output spectra indicate that a switching voltage of 5 V is desired to realize the exchange between cross state and bar state,the crosstalk under cross state and that under bar state are about 28.8 dB and 39.9 dB,respectively,and the insertion losses under these two states are about 2.42 dB and 0.13 dB,respectively.Compared with our four EO switches reported before,this device possesses ultra-compact size of 0.233 mm×0.233 mm as well as low crosstalk and insertion loss,and therefore it can serve as a good candidate for constructing large-scale optical routers or switching arrays in photonic network-on-chip(NoC).
By using silicon-on-insulator(SOI) platform, 12 channel waveguides, and four parallel-coupling one-microring resonator routing elements, a non-blocking four-port optical router is proposed. Structure design and optimization are performed on the routing elements at 1 550 nm. At drop state with a power consumption of 0 m W, the insertion loss of the drop port is less than 1.12 d B, and the crosstalk between the two output ports is less than-28 d B; at through state with a power consumption of 22 m W, the insertion loss of the through port is less than 0.45 d B, and the crosstalk between the two output ports is below-21 d B. Routing topology and function are demonstrated for the four-port optical router. The router can work at nine non-blocking routing states using the thermo-optic(TO) effect of silicon for tuning the resonance of each switching element. Detailed characterizations are presented, including output spectrum, insertion loss, and crosstalk. According to the analysis on all the data links of the router, the insertion loss is within the range of 0.13—3.36 d B, and the crosstalk is less than-19.46 d B. The router can meet the need of large-scale optical network-on-chip(ONo C).
