Abstract
In this paper, we demonstrate single-channel operation of the first InP
monolithic tunable optical router (MOTOR) chip designed to function as the
packet forwarding engine of an all-optical router. The device has
eight-input and eight-output ports and is capable of 40-Gb/s operation per
port with bit-error rates below 1E-9. MOTOR integrates eight
wavelength-tunable differential Mach–Zehnder semiconductor optical
amplifier (SOA) wavelength converters with preamplifiers and a passive 8$\,\times\,$8 arrayed-waveguide grating router. Each wavelength converter
employs a widely tunable sampled-grating distributed Bragg reflector (DBR)
laser for efficient wavelength switching across the C band and other
functions required for 40-Gb/s wavelength conversion. Active and passive
regions of the chip are defined through a robust quantum well intermixing
process to optimize the gain in the wavelength converters and minimize the
propagation losses in passive sections of the chip. The device is one of the
most complex photonic integrated circuits (PICs) reported to date, with
dimensions of 4.25 mm$\,\times\,$14.5 mm and more than 200 functional elements integrated on-chip.
We demonstrate single-channel wavelength conversion and channel switching
with this device using $2^{31}-1$ pseudorandom bit sequence (PRBS) data at 40 Gb/s. A power penalty
as low as 4.5 dB was achieved with less than 2-W drive power per
channel.
© 2010 IEEE
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