Integrated optical deserialiser time sampling based SiGe photoreceiver.

Area of Science:

• Photonics
• Electrical Engineering
• Optical Communications

Background:

• High-speed optical signals require advanced photoreceiver architectures.
• Existing photoreceivers face challenges with power consumption and parasitic effects at high frequencies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate a novel photoreceiver architecture for parallel electronic processing of high-speed optical signals.
• To reduce power consumption and mitigate parasitic effects in optical receiver front-ends.

Main Methods:

• Developed a photoreceiver architecture employing optical time sampling.
• Integrated four Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) photodetectors with waveguide delay lines.
• Designed and tested four receiver variations differing in data rate (10 Gb/s, 20 Gb/s) and waveguide loss (2.5 dB/cm, 0.2 dB/cm).

Main Results:

• Individual photodetector bit error rate performance below 1 × 10⁻¹⁰ achieved at optical power levels of 4.8–6.3 dBm.
• Electrical signals processed error-free at one-quarter of the bit rate after optical-to-electrical conversion.
• Demonstrated a significant reduction in operating frequency for electronic components.

Conclusions:

• The novel photoreceiver architecture enables efficient parallel processing of optical signals.
• This approach leads to a more power-efficient receiver front-end by reducing electronic operating frequencies.
• The demonstrated architecture offers a viable solution for next-generation high-speed optical communication systems.