Mach-Zehnder-based five-port silicon router for optical interconnects

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Optical Engineering
• Integrated Optics
• Silicon Photonics

Background:

• Optical routers are crucial for high-speed data transmission.
• Existing designs often face challenges with size, power consumption, and scalability.
• Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) switches offer a promising platform for integrated photonic devices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and fabricate a novel five-port silicon optical router.
• To minimize the number of switching elements and waveguide crossings for a compact design.
• To demonstrate the router's functionality and performance at high data rates.

Main Methods:

• Design and fabrication of a five-port optical router using silicon photonics.
• Implementation of Mach-Zehnder interferometer switches for routing.
• Utilizing thermal control for switching network operation.
• Testing the router at a data transmission rate of 32 Gb/s.

Main Results:

• A five-port silicon optical router was successfully fabricated.
• The design incorporates only 10 switching elements and five low-loss waveguide crossings.
• Demonstrated 20 distinct input/output (I/O) paths.
• Achieved stable data transmission at 32 Gb/s.

Conclusions:

• The proposed silicon optical router is compact and efficient.
• The device demonstrates high performance suitable for advanced optical networks.
• This technology holds significant potential for ultrahigh-capacity optical interconnects.