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Bandwidth-adaptable silicon photonic differentiator employing a slow light effect
Optics Letters
|April 15, 2017
Summary
We developed a bandwidth-adaptable photonic differentiator using slow light in photonic crystal waveguides. This novel device accurately differentiates optical pulses, overcoming limitations of existing photonic differentiators.
Area of Science:
- Photonics
- Optical Engineering
- Materials Science
Background:
- Photonic differentiators (DIFFs) are essential for photonic circuits but typically have limited bandwidths, restricting their practical applications.
- Existing terahertz-bandwidth DIFFs often exhibit a bandpass response, hindering their versatility.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and validate a novel bandwidth-adaptable photonic differentiator.
- To overcome the inherent bandwidth limitations of conventional photonic DIFFs.
Main Methods:
- Exploited the slow light effect in a photonic crystal waveguide (PhCW).
- Fabricated a PhCW Mach-Zehnder interferometer (PhCW-MZI) on a silicon-on-isolator platform.
- Tested the device with input Gaussian pulses of varying full width at half-maximums (FWHMs) from 2.7 to 81.4 ps.
Main Results:
- Accurate differentiation of input Gaussian pulses across a wide range of FWHMs (2.7–81.4 ps).
- Demonstrated the functionality of the bandwidth-adaptable photonic differentiator.
- Validated the PhCW-MZI concept on a silicon-on-isolator platform.
Conclusions:
- The proposed all-passive scheme circumvents bandwidth bottlenecks associated with previous photonic DIFFs.
- The bandwidth-adaptable photonic differentiator significantly broadens the potential application areas for photonic circuits.
- This advancement offers a more versatile solution for optical signal processing.