C-Band and O-Band Silicon Photonic Based Low-Power Variable Optical Attenuators
We propose and experimentally demonstrate low-power and broadband variable optical attenuators (VOAs) on the silicon photonics platform. The VOAs are based on a Mach–Zehnder interferometer structure. Different variations were fabricated using electron beam lithography using different inpu...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IEEE
2019-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Photonics Journal |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8770078/ |
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| Summary: | We propose and experimentally demonstrate low-power and broadband variable optical attenuators (VOAs) on the silicon photonics platform. The VOAs are based on a Mach–Zehnder interferometer structure. Different variations were fabricated using electron beam lithography using different input and output couplers, heater length and width, operating wavelength, and substrate undercut. Experimental results for the C-band VOA show that, including the substrate undercut, a 3X improvement can be achieved in the power consumption, at the expense of a reduction in electrical bandwidth, where 5- and 20-dB attenuation can be achieved using only 5.5 and 8 mW. Moreover, the VOA can operate over more than 80-nm optical bandwidth with ripples below 1 dB. Furthermore, we study the impact of the heater dimensions on the optical attenuation and VOA bandwidth. Finally, we present similar results for an O-band VOA design. |
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| ISSN: | 1943-0655 |