We propose and demonstrate active resonance wavelength stabilization for silicon microring resonators with an in-resonator defect-state-absorption (DSA)-based photodetector (PD) for optical ...interconnects. We integrate an electro-optic (EO) tuner and a thermo-optic (TO) tuner on the microring, which are both feedback-controlled following a photocurrent threshold-detection method. Our BF(2)-ion-implanted DSA-based PIN PD exhibits a cavity-enhanced sub-bandgap responsivity at 1550 nm of 3.3 mA/W upon -2 V, which is 550-fold higher than that exhibited by an unimplanted PIN diode integrated on the same microring. Our experiment reveals active stabilization of the resonance wavelength within a tolerance of 0.07 nm upon a step increment of the stage temperature by 7 °C. Upon temperature modulations between 23 °C and 32 °C and between 18 °C and 23 °C, the actively stabilized resonance exhibits a transmission power fluctuation within 2 dB. We observe open eye diagrams at a data transmission rate of up to 30 Gb/s under the temperature modulations.
The mechanical properties of biological cells are utilized as an inherent, label-free biomarker to indicate physiological and pathological changes of cells. Although various optical and microfluidic ...techniques have been developed for cell mechanical characterization, there is still a strong demand for non-contact and continuous methods. Here, by combining optical and microfluidic techniques in a single desktop platform, we demonstrate an optofluidic cell stretcher based on a "tweeze-and-drag" mechanism using a periodically chopped, tightly focused laser beam as an optical tweezer to trap a cell temporarily and a flow-induced drag force to stretch the cell in a microfluidic channel transverse to the tweezer. Our method leverages the advantages of non-contact optical forces and a microfluidic flow for both cell stretching and continuous cell delivery. We demonstrate the stretcher for mechanical characterization of rabbit red blood cells (RBCs), with a throughput of ∼1 cell per s at a flow rate of 2.5 μl h
−1
at a continuous-wave laser power of ∼25 mW at a wavelength of 1064 nm (chopped at 2 Hz). We estimate the spring constant of RBCs to be ∼14.9 μN m
−1
. Using the stretcher, we distinguish healthy RBCs and RBCs treated with glutaraldehyde at concentrations of 5 × 10
−4
% to 2.5 × 10
−3
%, with a strain-to-concentration sensitivity of ∼−1529. By increasing the optical power to ∼45 mW, we demonstrate cell-stretching under a higher flow rate of 4 μl h
−1
, with a higher throughput of ∼1.5 cells per s and a higher sensitivity of ∼−2457. Our technique shows promise for applications in the fields of healthcare monitoring and biomechanical studies.
An optofluidic cell stretcher using a periodically chopped optical tweezer and a microfluidic flow for non-contact, continuous cell mechanical characterization.
The development of facile and efficient polymerizations toward functional polymers with unique structures and attractive properties is of great academic and industrial significance. Here we develop a ...straightforward C-H-activated polyspiroannulation route to in situ generate photoresponsive spiro-polymers with complex structures. The palladium(II)-catalyzed stepwise polyspiroannulations of free naphthols and internal diynes proceed efficiently in dimethylsulfoxide at 120 °C without the constraint of apparent stoichiometric balance in monomers. A series of functional polymers with multisubstituted spiro-segments and absolute molecular weights of up to 39,000 are produced in high yields (up to 99%). The obtained spiro-polymers can be readily fabricated into different well-resolved fluorescent photopatterns with both turn-off and turn-on modes based on their photoinduced fluorescence change. Taking advantage of their photoresponsive refractive index, we successfully apply the polymer thin films in integrated silicon photonics techniques and achieve the permanent modification of resonance wavelengths of microring resonators by UV irradiation.
On-chip switchable optical true-time delay lines (OTTDLs) feature a large group delay tuning range but suffer from a discrete tuning step. OTTDLs with a large delay tuning range and a continuous ...tuning capability are highly desired. In this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a silicon-based broadband continuously tunable OTTDL comprising a 7-bit delay line and a switch-based continuously tunable delay line. The group delay of the entire OTTDL can be continuously tuned from 0 to 1020.16 ps. A delay error within -1.27 ps to 1.75 ps, and a delay fluctuation of less than 2.69 ps in the frequency range of 2∼25 GHz are obtained. We analyze the causes of the delay fluctuation and its influence on beamforming. Moreover, we also propose a simplified non-invasive calibration method that can significantly reduce the complexity of the delay state calibration and can be easily extended to delay lines with more stages of optical switches. The high performance of our OTTDL chip and the calibration method drive practical applications of integrated OTTDLs.
We demonstrate silicon nitride mode-division multiplexing (MDM) and wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) using asymmetrical directional couplers and microring resonators. Our experiments reveal ...three-mode multiplexing and demultiplexing. We demonstrate 30Gb/s open eye diagrams with an extinction ratio of ~9 dB for each of the three modes. We observe the worst-case modal crosstalk of ~-10 dB. Our analysis of the measured transmission spectra suggests three contributions to the observed crosstalks, with the dominant cause being a compromised input-coupling at the directional couplers in the multiplexer.
This paper reviews developments in cascaded microresonator-based matrix switches for silicon photonic interconnection networks in many-core computing applications. Specifically, we emphasize our ...recently proposed 5 times 5 matrix switch comprising two-dimensionally cascaded microring resonator-based electrooptic switches coupled to a waveguide cross-grid on a silicon chip. The cross-grid adopts low-loss low-crosstalk multimode-interference-based waveguide crossings. Such a microresonator-based matrix switch offers nonblocking interconnections among multiple inputs and multiple outputs, with the key merits of i) a tens to hundreds of micrometers-scale footprint, ii) gigabit/second-scale data transmission, iii) nanosecond-speed circuit-switching, iv) 100-muW-scale DC power consumption per link, and v) large-scale integration for networks-on-chips applications. We analyze in detail the microring resonator-based cross-grid switch design for high-data-rate signal transmission in the context of our proposed 5 times 5 matrix switch. We also study the feasibility of large-scale integration of the matrix switch. We report proof-of-concept experiments of a single cross-grid switch element and a 2 times 2 matrix switch, propose design guidelines, and discuss future engineering challenges.
Various crystalline silicon carbide (SiC) polytypes are emerging as promising photonic materials due to their wide bandgap energies and nonlinear optical properties. However, their wafer forms cannot ...readily provide a refractive index contrast for optical confinement in the SiC layer, which makes it difficult to realize a SiC-based integrated photonic platform. In this paper, we demonstrate a 3C-SiC-on-insulator (3C-SiCoI)-based integrated photonic platform by transferring the epitaxial 3C-SiC layer from a silicon die to a borosilicate glass substrate using anodic bonding. By fine-tuning the fabrication process, we demonstrated nearly 100% area transferring die-to-wafer bonding. We fabricated waveguide-coupled microring resonators using sulfur hexafluoride (SF
)-based dry etching and demonstrated a moderate loaded quality (Q) factor of 1.4 × 10
. We experimentally excluded the existence of the photorefractive effect in this platform at sub-milliwatt on-chip input optical power levels. This 3C-SiCoI platform is promising for applications, including large-scale integration of linear, nonlinear and quantum photonics.
The proliferation of computation-intensive technologies has led to a significant rise in the number of datacenters, posing challenges for high-speed and power-efficient datacenter interconnects ...(DCIs). Although inter-DCIs based on intensity modulation and direct detection (IM-DD) along with wavelength-division multiplexing technologies exhibit power-efficient and large-capacity properties, the requirement of multiple laser sources leads to high costs and limited scalability, and the chromatic dispersion (CD) restricts the transmission length of optical signals. Here we propose a scalable on-chip parallel IM-DD data transmission system enabled by a single-soliton Kerr microcomb and a reconfigurable microring resonator-based CD compensator. We experimentally demonstrate an aggregate line rate of 1.68 Tbit/s over a 20-km-long SMF. The extrapolated energy consumption for CD compensation of 40-km-SMFs is ~0.3 pJ/bit, which is calculated as being around 6 times less than that of the commercial 400G-ZR coherent transceivers. Our approach holds significant promise for achieving data rates exceeding 10 terabits.
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