All-optical clock recovery from 40 Gbit/s RZ signal based on microring resonators

A scheme for high-speed clock recovery from return-to-zero (RZ) signal with microring resonators is presented. By using a silicon microring resonator (MRR) for clock extraction and a 3-order nonlinear series-coupled microring resonator (SCMR) for amplitude equalization, clock pulses with amplitude modulation less than 1 dB can be obtained. The proposed scheme is also designed and numerically studied by 3D full vectorial film mode matching method (FMM) and coupled mode theory (CMT). Simulation results show that clock can be recovered at 40 Gbit/s with short rise- and fall- times.