Scalable Emitter Photonic Integrated Circuits on an Open-Access Indium Phosphide Foundry

We present an easy access prototype solution using Fraunhofer-HHI's open-access indium phosphide photonic integrated circuits (PIC) platform. The process design kit enabled generic multiproject wafer process co-integrates low-loss passive components with gain, modulation, and detection. A high-speed 80 GBaud traveling-wave Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) is a key building block for emitter PICs. Accordingly, we demonstrate wafer-scale, all-electrical predicing tests using an MZM integrated with an on-chip distributed-feedback laser and photodiode. To showcase the platform's breadth, we highlight three emitter PICs. A widely tunable electro-optic comb generator with a 20-dB comb bandwidth of 480 GHz, a 670 MHz low-repetition-rate extended-cavity mode-locked laser, and a monolithic tunable ring laser with a 40 nm single-mode tuning range and a 8.2 kHz intrinsic linewidth. All three PIC examples enable data-rate scaling in optical communication by either increasing the number of channels or by increased symbol rate. Lastly, we present a convenient packaging solution that shortens lead time for prototype-testing.