On-chip integratable all-optical quantizer using strong cross-phase modulation in a silicon-organic hybrid slot waveguide

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 19528
• Main Authors: Kang, Zhe, Yuan, Jinhui, Zhang, Xianting, Sang, Xinzhu, Wang, Kuiru, Wu, Qiang, Yan, Binbin, Li, Feng, Zhou, Xian, Zhong, Kangping, Zhou, Guiyao, Yu, Chongxiu, Farrell, Gerald, Lu, Chao, Yaw Tam, Hwa, Wai, P. K. A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 18.01.2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/624/1075/401; 639/624/399/1099; 639/624/400/385; 639/624/400/584; Data processing; Electronics industry; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Phase shift; Science; Signal processing; Silicon
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep19528

High performance all-optical quantizer based on silicon waveguide is believed to have significant applications in photonic integratable optical communication links, optical interconnection networks and real-time signal processing systems. In this paper, we propose an integratable all-optical quantizer for on-chip and low power consumption all-optical analog-to-digital converters. The quantization is realized by the strong cross-phase modulation and interference in a silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) slot waveguide based Mach-Zehnder interferometer. By carefully designing the dimension of the SOH waveguide, large nonlinear coefficients up to 16,000 and 18,069 W −1 /m for the pump and probe signals can be obtained respectively, along with a low pulse walk-off parameter of 66.7 fs/mm and all-normal dispersion in the wavelength regime considered. Simulation results show that the phase shift of the probe signal can reach 8π at a low pump pulse peak power of 206 mW and propagation length of 5 mm such that a 4-bit all-optical quantizer can be realized. The corresponding signal-to-noise ratio is 23.42 dB and effective number of bit is 3.89-bit.