Silicon photonic modulators for advanced modulation formats in data center applications

在当今的信息技术世界中，海量数据以越来越快的速度在数据中心的服务器之间存储、检索和传输。业界正在寻求低成本、小尺寸、低功耗、高密度和高速度的光传输解决方案创新，以支持这种增长。硅中的光学器件具有极小和低功耗的潜力。几十年来，硅器件和集成电路一直是微电子技术的主力，但这种材料中的光子电路才刚刚开始成为高速数据网络的实用解决方案。 该项目的目标是开发一种调制器，该调制器将使用与微电子兼容的制造工艺在绝缘体上制造材料，以实现低成本生产。这个项目不是简单的数字开关调制，而是解决具有几个幅度级别的调制格式。这些格式允许以更高的速率传输数据，但同时对调制器特性提出了更严格的要求，例如在损耗和线性度方面。这些失真中的一些可以通过适当的信号处理来补偿，这一方面也将在本项目中通过数值模拟进行研究。 该项目提出开发一种硅光子调制器，该调制器将能够产生在一个波长信道上传输100Gbit/S的信号。这将需要三次制造迭代，随后在传输试验台中完成器件表征和性能评估。该项目是与加拿大TeraXion公司合作的，TeraXion公司已经成功地将几种用于高速光纤传输网络的先进技术产品商业化。

In today's information technology world, massive amount of data are stored, retrieved, and transmitted at an ever increasing speed between servers in data centers. The industry is looking to innovate in optical transmission solutions that are lower cost, lower size, lower power, higher density and higher speed to support this growth. Optical devices in silicon have the potential of being extremely small and low in power consumption. Silicon devices and integrated circuits have been the workhorse of microelectronics for decades but photonic circuits in this material is just starting to emerge as a practical solution for high speed data networks. The goal of this project is to develop a modulator that will be fabricated in silicon-on-insulator material using fabrication processes compatibles with microelectronics for low cost production. Rather than simple digital ON-OFF modulation, this project will address modulation formats with several amplitude levels. These formats allow data to be transferred at a higher rate but at the same time put more stringent requirements on the modulator characteristics, for example in terms of loss and linearity. Some of these distortions can be compensated through adequate signal processing, an aspect that will also be studied in this project through numerical simulations. The project proposes the development of a silicon photonic modulator that will be able to generate signals to transmit 100 Gbit/s on one wavelength channel. This will require three fabrication iterations, followed by completed device characterization and performance evaluation in transmission testbed. This project is in partnership with TeraXion, a Canadian company that has successfully commercialized several advanced technology products for high-speed optical fiber transmission networks.