摘要:
A phase modulation waveguide structure includes one of a semiconductor and a semiconductor-on-insulator substrate, a doped semiconductor layer formed over the one of a semiconductor and a semiconductor-on-insulator substrate, the doped semiconductor portion including a waveguide rib protruding from a surface thereof not in contact with the one of a semiconductor and a semiconductor-on-insulator substrate, and an electrical contact on top of the waveguide rib. The electrical contact is formed of a material with an optical refractive index close to that of a surrounding oxide layer that surrounds the waveguide rib and the electrical contact and lower than the optical refractive index of the doped semiconductor layer. During propagation of an optical mode within the waveguide structure, the electrical contact isolates the optical mode between the doped semiconductor layer and a metal electrode contact on top of the electrical contact.
摘要:
An assembly comprising first and second electronic devices and an optical coupling device that optically couples an optical waveguide on the first electronic device to an optical waveguide on the second electronic device. In this way, optical proximity communication between the devices is possible. The electronic devices may be integrated circuit chips. The first optical waveguide is positioned relative to the optical coupling device to direct an optical signal to the optical coupling device. Further, the second optical waveguide is positioned relative to the optical coupling device to receive the optical signal, which is directed from the optical coupling device to the second optical waveguide. Thus, the optical coupling device optically couples the first optical waveguide to the second optical waveguide.
摘要:
A linear N×N robotic fiber optic switch is described. Notably, fiber adapters for connecting the input and output fibers are arranged linearly. Moreover, each fiber adaptor is driven by a push-pull mechanism such that it can be positioned to a front, center, or back position, with which the private plane of a fiber port can be separated from the other fiber ports and fiber connection can be configured using a simple linear translation robotic pickup free of interference in a compact space. Furthermore, a large scale fabric switch comprises 3 stages of N linear N×N robotic switches connected using fiber shuffles. Each stage or all three stages can share one robot to reduce cost. Scalability to large port counts may be accomplished proportional to N, the number of ports, rather than N2.
摘要:
An MCM may include a single optical routing layer that provides point-to-point connectivity among N chips in the MCM, such as all-to-all connectivity or full-mesh point-to-point connectivity. Moreover, the optical routing layer may include: N optical waveguides optically coupled to the N chips and a cyclic de-multiplexer, optically coupled to the N optical waveguides, that routes optical signals among the N optical waveguides without optical-waveguide crossing in the optical routing layer. For example, the cyclic de-multiplexer may include: an array-waveguide-grating (AWG) wavelength router and/or an echelle-grating wavelength router.
摘要:
Using silicon photonic components that support a single polarization, the output of an optical receiver is independent of the polarization of an optical signal. In particular, using a polarization-diversity technique, the two orthogonal polarizations in a single-mode optical fiber are split in two and processed independently. For example, the two optical signals are provided by a polarizing splitting grating coupler. Subsequently, a wavelength channel in the two optical signals is selected using a wavelength-selective filter (for example, using a ring resonator or an echelle grating) and combined at an optical detector (such as a photo-detector) to achieve polarization-independent operation.
摘要:
An integrated optical device includes a photo-detector (such as germanium) optically coupled to an optical waveguide. This photo-detector is deposited on the optical waveguide, and an optical signal propagating in the optical waveguide may be evanescently coupled to the photo-detector. In order to increase the absorption length of the photo-detector, a mirror (such as a distributed Bragg reflection grating) is included in the optical waveguide near the end of the photo-detector. This mirror reflects the optical signal back toward the photo-detector, thereby increasing the absorption of the optical signal by the photo-detector. In addition, absorption may be reduced by using electrical contacts that are electrically coupled to the photo-detector at locations where the optical mode of the optical signal is largely in the underlying optical waveguide, and by using a fingered metal layer to couple to the electrical contacts.
摘要:
An optical module is described. This optical module includes at least two optical devices that communicate with each other using edge-to-edge optical coupling of an optical signal between optical components in the two optical devices. Note that the edge-to-edge optical coupling may occur without mode converters at edges of either of the optical devices. Furthermore, the edge-to-edge optical coupling may be facilitated by an alignment substrate, which is mechanically coupled to the two optical devices. This alignment substrate aligns the edges of the two optical devices so that they are approximately parallel to each other, and aligns the optical components in the two optical devices.
摘要:
A wavelength-selective optical switch for switching arbitrary wavelengths between optical fibers in mesh networks, using interference filters for separating optical wavelengths, and two-dimensional arrays of micromirrors for switching. Broadband switch inputs and outputs are provided for adding and dropping arbitrary wavelengths at each node of the network. A two-stage multiplexer and two-stage demultiplexer are provided to simplify the free-space demultiplexer and multiplexer. Mechanisms are provided that allows full non-blocking functionality in the presence of finite yield of the micromirror arrays.
摘要:
An optical device that includes multiple optical modulators having target operating wavelengths that are distributed over a band of wavelengths and actual operating wavelengths is described. For example, the target operating wavelengths of adjacent optical modulators may be separated by a wavelength increment. Moreover, because of differences between the actual operating wavelengths and the target operating wavelengths of the optical modulators, tuning elements may be used to tune the optical modulators so that the actual operating wavelengths match corresponding carrier wavelengths in a set of optical signals. Furthermore, control logic in the optical device may assign the optical modulators to the corresponding carrier wavelengths based at least on differences between the carrier wavelengths and the actual operating wavelengths, thereby reducing an average tuning energy associated with the tuning elements.
摘要:
An integrated circuit that includes an optical waveguide defined in a semiconductor layer is described. In this integrated circuit, light is coupled between the optical waveguide and an optical modulator, which is disposed on the optical waveguide, using 3-dimensional (3-D) taper structures that are proximate to the ends of the optical modulator. The cross-sectional areas of these 3-D taper structures transition, over a distance, from that of the optical waveguide (distal from the optical modulator) to that of optical modulator (proximate to the ends of the optical modulator). In this way, a spatial extent of an optical mode in the optical waveguide and a spatial extent of the optical mode in the optical modulator may be approximately matched to reduce the optical loss when the light is coupled to or from the optical modulator.