10:15 AM - 10:30 AM
▼ [10a-W331-5] All-optical serial-to-parallel conversion by nonlinear carrier-dispersion effects in silicon
Keywords:Silicon photonics, Free-carrier dispersion effect, Mach-Zehnder interferometer
Due to its potential usage in optical label processing schemes and photonic random-access memories, all-optical serial-to-parallel conversion (SPC) is investigated in silicon photonics. The objective of the current research is to fabricate a monolithic SPC device that fits on a single silicon chip based on nonlinear optical effects (NLOEs) in silicon. A cascaded Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) approach is used in this venture. Here, the number of MZIs cascaded is such that it is equivalent to the number of bits of the probe signal, consisting of the original serial data. By eluding optical Kerr effect, the current research focuses on utilizing free-carrier dispersion effect to perform SPC on the probe signal. Consequently, not only SPC can be performed by relatively low pump power, but the overall size of the device will also shrink by a considerable amount. Intensity modulation of the probe light synchronized with the pump pulse was observed by pump-probe measurements.