Study of integrated photonic circuits for optical telecommunications
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Date
2022-10-13
Authors
Στύλιος, Δημοσθένης
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Abstract
The focus of this Thesis is the photonic circuit of modulator. The study of modulators is of great interest since modern telecommunication systems and mainly intra datacenter connection need higher data rates, bigger bandwidth, and lower cost. Central to modern telecommunication systems is the device of digital to analog conversion, in many cases a device costly in power, footprint and with constellation imperfections. In high-speed digital optical transmitters, the Digital to Optical (D/O) translation typically comprises power consuming and costly electrical Digital to Analog Convertors (eDAC)-based data conversion, followed by analogue optical modulation. The idea of adopting a direct Digital to Optical domain (D/O) conversion, eliminating the eDAC intermediaries is put forward, but first a perfect segmented Mach-Zehnder Modulator (SEMZM) must be implemented. Prior to that, the Electro – Optic effects, that offer some materials the ability to modulate light are presented, then the topologies that are in use are explained and the fabrication techniques for different modulators are demonstrated. In the last chapter of this Thesis a silicon Mach-Zehnder Modulator (MZM) and a segmented MZM of the same type are implemented in the simulation tool VPI PHOTONICS. The segmented MZM is acting as an optical Digital to Analog Converter (oDAC) and its performance is studied. Moreover, the multi-level multi parallel oDAC architecture is explained. Finally, a novel design, that combines a parallel modulator’s architecture of oDAC and the above segmented MZM is explained and implemented in the VPI Photonics.
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Keywords
Photonic integrated circuits, Optical digital to analog converters, VPI photonics