Patent Grant
7477807
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to optical telecommunication systems and more particularly to optical transport networks employed in such systems deploying photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) or dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) optical networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
If used throughout this description and the drawings, the following short terms have the following meanings unless otherwise stated:
1R—Re-amplification of the information signal.
2R—Optical signal regeneration that includes signal reshaping as well as signal regeneration or re-amplification.
3R—Optical signal regeneration that includes signal retiming as well as signal reshaping as well as re-amplification.
4R—Any electronic reconditioning to correct for transmission impairments other than 3R processing, such as, but not limited to, FEC encoding, decoding and re-encoding.
A/D—Add/Drop.
APD—Avalanche Photodiode.
AWG—Arrayed Waveguide Grating.
BER—Bit Error Rate.
CD—Chromatic Dispersion.
CDWM—Cascaded Dielectric wavelength Multiplexer (Demultiplexer).
CoC—Chip on Carrier.
DBR—Distributed Bragg Reflector laser.
EDFAs—Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers.
DAWN—Digitally Amplified Wavelength Network.
DCF—Dispersion Compensating Fiber.
DEMUX—Demultiplexer.
DFB—Distributed Feedback laser.
DLM—Digital Line Modulator.
DON—Digital Optical Network as defined and used in this application.
EA—Electro-Absorption.
EAM—Electro-Absorption Modulator.
EDFA—Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier.
EML—Electro-absorption Modulator/Laser.
EO—Electrical to Optical signal conversion (from the electrical domain into the optical domain).
FEC—Forward Error Correction.
GVD—Group Velocity Dispersion comprising CD and/or PMD.
ITU—International Telecommunication Union.
MMI—Multimode Interference combiner.
MPD—Monitoring Photodiode.
MZM—Mach-Zehnder Modulator.
MUX—Multiplexer.
NE—Network Element.
NF—Noise Figure: The ratio of input OSNR to output OSNR.
OADM—Optical Add Drop Multiplexer.
OE—Optical to Electrical signal conversion (from the optical domain into the electrical domain).
OEO—Optical to Electrical to Optical signal conversion (from the optical domain into the electrical domain with electrical signal regeneration and then converted back into optical domain) and also sometimes referred to as SONET regenerators.
OEO-REGEN—OEO signal REGEN using opto-electronic regeneration.
OO—Optical-Optical for signal re-amplification due to attenuation. EDFAs do this in current WDM systems.
OOO—Optical to Optical to Optical signal conversion (from the optical domain and remaining in the optical domain with optical signal regeneration and then forwarded in optical domain).
OOO-REGEN—OOO signal REGEN using all-optical regeneration.
OSNR—Optical Signal to Noise Ratio.
PIC—Photonic Integrated Circuit.
PIN—p-i-n semiconductor photodiode.
PMD—Polarization Mode Dispersion.
REGEN—digital optical signal regeneration, also referred to as re-mapping, is signal restoration, accomplished electronically or optically or a combination of both, which is required due to both optical signal degradation or distortion primarily occurring during optical signal propagation caused by the nature and quality of the signal itself or due to optical impairments incurred on the transport medium.
Rx—Receiver, here in reference to optical channel receivers.
RxPIC—Receiver Photonic Integrated Circuit.
SDH—Synchronous Digital Hierarchy.
SDM—Space Division Multiplexing.
Signal regeneration (regenerating)—Also, rejuvenation. This may entail 1R, 2R, 3R or 4R and in a broader sense signal A/D multiplexing, switching, routing, grooming, wavelength conversion as discussed, for example, in the book entitled, “Optical Networks” by Rajiv Ramaswami and Kumar N. Sivarajan, Second Edition, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2002.
SMF—Single Mode Fiber.
SML—Semiconductor Modulator/Laser.
SOA—Semiconductor Optical Amplifier.
SONET—Synchronous Optical Network.
SSC—Spot Size Converter, sometimes referred to as a mode adapter.
TDM—Time Division Multiplexing.
TEC—Thermo Electric Cooler.
TRxPIC—Monolithic Transceiver Photonic Integrated Circuit.
Tx—Transmitter, here in reference to optical channel transmitters.
TxPIC—Transmitter Photonic Integrated Circuit.
VOA—Variable Optical Attenuator.
WDM—Wavelength Division Multiplexing. As used herein, WDM includes Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM).
DWDM optical networks are deployed for transporting data in long haul networks, metropolitan area networks, and other optical communication applications. In a DWDM system, a plurality of different light wavelengths, representing signal channels, are transported or propagated along fiber links or along one more optical fibers comprising an optical span. In a conventional DWDM system, an optical transmitter is an electrical-to-optical (EO) conversion apparatus for generating an integral number of optical channels λ1, λ2, . . . λN, where each channel has a different center or peak wavelength. DWDM optical networks commonly have optical transmitter modules that deploy eight or more optical channels, with some DWDM optical networks employing 30, 40, 80 or more signal channels. The optical transmitter module generally comprises a plurality of discrete optical devices, such as a discrete group or array of DFB or DBR laser sources of different wavelengths, a plurality of discrete modulators, such as, Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs) or electro-absorption modulators (EAMs), and an optical combiner, such as a star coupler, a multi-mode interference (MMI) combiner, an Echelle grating or an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). All of these optical components are optically coupled to one another as an array of optical signal paths coupled to the input of an optical combiner using a multitude of single mode fibers (SMFs), each aligned and optically coupled between discrete optical devices. A semiconductor modulator/laser (SML) may be integrated on a single chip, which in the case of an electro-absorption modulator/laser (EML) is, of course, an EA modulator. The modulator, whether an EAM or a MZM, modulates the cw (continuous wave) output of the laser source with a digital data signal to provide a channel signal which is different in wavelength from each of the other channel signals of other EMLs in the transmitter module. While each signal channel has a center wavelength (e.g., 1.48 μm, 1.52 μm, 1.55 μm, etc.), each optical channel is typically assigned a minimum channel spacing or bandwidth to avoid crosstalk with other optical channels. Currently, channel spacings are greater than 50 GHz, with 50 GHz and 100 GHz being common channel spacings.
An optical fiber span in an optical transport network may provide coupling between an optical transmitter terminal and an optical receiver terminal. The terminal traditionally is a transceiver capable of generating channel signals as well as receiving channel signals. The optical medium may include one or more optical fiber links forming an optical span with one or more intermediate optical nodes. The optical receiver receives the optical channel signals and converts the channel signals into electrical signals employing an optical-to-electrical (OE) conversion apparatus for data recovery. The bit error rate (BER) at the optical receiver for a particular optical channel will depend upon the received optical power, the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR), non-linear fiber effects of each fiber link, such as chromatic dispersion (CD) and polarization mode dispersion (PMD), and whether a forward error correction (FEC) code technique was employed in the transmission of the data.
The optical power in each channel is naturally attenuated by the optical fiber link or spans over which the channel signals propagate. The signal attenuation, as measured in dB/km, of an optical fiber depends upon the particular fiber, with the total loss increasing with the length of optical fiber span.
As indicated above, each optical fiber link typically introduces group velocity dispersion (GVD) comprising chromatic dispersion (CD) and polarization mode dispersion (PMD). Chromatic dispersion of the signal is created by the different frequency components of the optical signal travel at different velocities in the fiber. Polarization mode dispersion (PMD) of the signal is created due to the delay-time difference between the orthogonally polarized modes of the signal light. Thus, GVD can broaden the width of an optical pulse as it propagates along an optical fiber. Both attenuation and dispersion effects can limit the distance that an optical signal can travel in an optical fiber and still provide detectable data at the optical receiver and be received at a desired BER. The dispersion limit will depend, in part, on the data rate of the optical channel. Generally, the limiting dispersion length, L, is modeled as decreasing inversely with B2, where B is the bit rate.
The landscape of optical transport networks has change significantly over the past ten years. Prior to this time, most long haul telecommunication networks were generally handled via electrical domain transmission, such as provided through wire cables, which is bandwidth limited. Telecommunication service providers have more recently commercially deployed optical transport networks having vastly higher information or data transmission capability compared to traditional electrical transport networks. Capacity demands have increased significantly with the advent of the Internet. The demand for information signal capacity increases dramatically every year.
In a conventional long haul DWDM optical network, erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) may be employed at intermediate nodes in the optical span to amplify attenuated optical channel signals. Dispersion compensation devices may also be employed to compensate for the effects of fiber pulse dispersion and reshape the optical pulses approximately to their original signal shape.
As previously indicated, a conventional DWDM optical network requires a large number of discrete optical components in the optical transmitter and receiver as well as at intermediate nodes along the optical link between the transmitter terminal and the receiver terminal. More particularly, each optical transmitter typically includes a semiconductor laser source for each optical channel. Typically a packaged module may include a semiconductor laser and a monitoring photodiode (MPD) to monitor the laser source wavelength and intensity and a heat sink or thermal electric cooler (TEC) to control the temperature and, therefore, wavelength of the laser source. The laser sources as well as the optical coupling means for the output light of the laser source to fiber pigtail, usually involving an optical lens system, are all mounted on a substrate, such as a silicon microbench. The output of the laser pigtail is then coupled to an external electro-optical modulator, such as a Mach-Zehnder lithium niobate modulator. Alternatively, the laser source itself may be directly modulated. Moreover, different modulation approaches may be employed to modulate the external modulator, such as dual tone frequency techniques.
The output of each modulator is coupled via an optical fiber to an optical combiner, such as, an optical multiplexer, for example, a silica-based thin film filter, such as an array waveguide grating (AWG) fabricated employing a plurality of silicon dioxide waveguides formed in a silica substrate. The fibers attached to each device may be fusion spliced together or mechanically coupled. Each of these device/fiber connections introduces a deleterious, backward reflection into the transmitter, which can degrade the channel signals. Each optical component and fiber coupling also typically introduces an optical insertion loss.
Part of the cost of the optical transmitter is associated with the requirement that the optical components also be optically compatible. For example, semiconductor lasers typically produce light output that has a TE optical mode. Conventional optical fibers typically do not preserve optical polarization. Thus, optical fiber pigtails and modulators will transmit and receive both transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) polarization modes. Similarly, the optical combiner is polarization sensitive to both the TE and TM modes. In order to attenuate the effects of polarization dispersion, the modulator and the optical combiner are, therefore, designed to be polarization insensitive, increasing their cost. Alternatively, polarization preserving fibers may be employed for optically coupling each laser source to its corresponding modulator and for coupling each modulator to the optical combiner. Polarization preserving fibers comprise fibers with a transverse refractive index profile designed to preserve the polarization of an optical mode as originally launched into a fiber. For example, the fiber core may be provided with an oblong shape, or may be stressed by applying a force to the fiber to warp the refractive index of the waveguide core along a radial or cross-sectional lateral direction of the fiber, such as a PANDA™ fiber. However, polarization preserving fibers are expensive and increase packaging costs since they require highly accurate angular alignment of the fiber at each coupling point to an optical component in order to preserve the initial polarization of the channel signal.
A conventional optical receiver also requires a plurality of discrete optical components, such as an optical demultiplexer or combiner, such as an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG), optical fibers, optical amplifiers, and discrete optical detectors as well as electronic circuit components for handling the channel signals in the electrical domain. A conventional optical amplifier, such as an EDFA, has limited spectral width over which sufficient gain can be provided to a plurality of optical signal channels. Consequently, intermediate OEO nodes will be required comprising a demultiplexer to separate the optical channel signals, photodetector array to provide OE conversion of the optical signals into the electrical domain, 3R processing of the electrical channel signals, EO conversion or regeneration of the processed electrical signals, via an electro-optic modulator, into optical signals, optical amplifiers to amplify the channel signals, dispersion compensators to correct for signal distortion and dispersion, and an optical multiplexer to recombine the channel signals for propagation over the next optical link.
There is considerable interest in DWDM systems to increase both the data rate of each signal channel as well as the number of channels, particularly within the gain bandwidth of the EDFA. However, increasing the channel data rate necessitates increasing the number of intermediate nodes along the optical path to provide the required signal dispersion compensation and amplification. Increasing the number of channels requires precise control of channel assignment and more precise control over signal dispersion, which dramatically increases the complexity and cost of the fiber-optic components of the system. A further complication is that many pre-existing optical networks use different types of optical fibers in the different optical links of the optical network having, therefore, different dispersion effects over different fiber lengths. In some cases, the wavelengths of the optical channels generated at the optical transmitter may not be optimal for one or more optical links of the optical span.
What is desired are improved techniques to provide DWDM optical network services through improved, integrated optical network components and systems.
It is an object of this invention to provide an optical transmitter or transceiver that comprises a PIC with integrated active and passive components adapted to generate and/or receive optical channel signals approximately conforming to a standardized wavelength grid, such as the ITU wavelength grid.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an integrated optical component where the optical transmitter, optical receiver or optical transceiver is an integrated photonic integrated circuit (PIC).
It is another object of this invention to provide a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) comprising an array of modulated sources, each providing a modulated signal output at a channel wavelength different from the channel wavelength of other modulated sources and a wavelength selective combiner having an input optically coupled to received all the channel signal outputs from the modulated sources and provide a combined output signal.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an integrated optical component where the optical transmitter or optical transceiver comprises an integrated photonic integrated circuit (PIC) to eliminate the required optical alignment and optical coupling of discrete optical components via optical waveguide devices or optical fibers.
Another object of this invention is the provision of a TxPIC chip that includes multiple signal channels where each channel comprises a modulated source of different wavelength where all the wavelengths are approximated to a standardized wavelength grid, with their channel signal outputs coupled to an optical combiner to provide at its output a combined channel signal.
According to this invention, a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) chip comprising an array of modulated sources, each providing a modulated signal output at a channel wavelength different from the channel wavelength of other modulated sources and a wavelength selective combiner having an input optically coupled to received all the channel signal outputs from the modulated sources and provide a combined output signal on an output waveguide from the chip. The modulated sources, combiner and output waveguide are all integrated on the same chip.
An optical transmitter comprises a photonic integrated circuit chip or TxPIC chip having an integrated array of modulated sources which may be an array of directly modulated laser sources or an integrated array of laser sources and electro-optic modulators. The modulated sources have their outputs coupled to inputs of an integrated optical combiner. For example, the laser array may be DFB lasers or DBR lasers, preferably the former, which, in one embodiment may be directly modulated. The electro-optical modulator may be comprised of electro-absorption (EA) modulators (EAMs) or Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs), preferably the former. The optical combiner may be a free space combiner or a wavelength selective combiner or multiplexer, where examples of the free space combiner are a power coupler such as a star coupler and a multi-mode interference (MMI) coupler, and examples of a wavelength selective combiner are an Echelle grating or an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG), preferably the latter multiplexer because of its lower insertion loss. This disclosure discloses many different embodiments of the TxPIC, applications of the TxPIC in an optical transport network and wavelength stabilization or monitoring of the TxPIC.
The TxPIC chip in its simplest form comprises a semiconductor laser array, an electro-optic modulator array, an optical combiner and an output waveguide. The output waveguide may include a spot size converter (SSC) for providing a chip output that is better matched to the numerical aperture of the optical coupling medium, which is typically an optical fiber. In addition, a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) array may be included in various points on the chip, for example, between the modulator array and the optical combiner; or between the laser array and the modulator array. In addition, a photodiode (PD) array may be included before the laser array; or between the laser array and the modulator array; or between an SOA array, following the laser array, and the modulator array, or between the modulator array and the optical combiner; or between an SOA array, following the modulator array, and the optical combiner. Also, an SOA may be provided in the output waveguide, preferably a laser amplifier, for example, a GC-SOA.
A preferred form of the TxPIC chip may be comprised of an array of modulated sources comprising a DFB laser array and an EAM array, together with an AWG multiplexer and possibly with some on-chip monitoring photodiodes, such as PIN photodiodes or avalanche photodiodes (APDs).
Another disclosed feature is a transceiver (TRxPIC) that includes, in addition to the laser and modulator arrays and combiner, an array of photodetectors to receive optical channel signals for OE conversion as well as provide for transmission of optical channel signals on single output waveguide or on separate input and output waveguides. In such an embodiment, the optical combiner or multiplexer also functions as an optical decombiner or demultiplexer. On-chip optical amplifiers may be provided in the output waveguide from the optical combiner or in the input waveguide to the optical combiner to amplify the channel signals.
Another disclosed feature is deployment of a plurality of output waveguides from the TxPIC chip AWG combiner to provide for selection of the output having optimized passband characteristics.
Another disclosed feature is the deployment of redundant sets of modulated sources, such as, for examples, EMLs, (combination laser/modulator) on the TxPIC chip coupled to the optical combiner for substitution of faulty EMLs thereby enhancing chip yield.
Another disclosed feature is the deployment of an on-chip photodiode on the TxPIC to monitor or check for antireflection qualities of an AR coating applied to the front facet of the TxPIC chip.
Another disclosed feature is the provision of PIC OEO REGEN chip or chips where the PIC chip(s) are flip chip mounted to IC circuit chips.
Another disclosed feature is the provision of an integrated array of monitoring photodiodes on the TxPIC chip adjacent the back end of the array lasers to monitor their optical power and which may later be cleaved from the TxPIC chip.
Another disclosed feature is the provision of at least one extra set of modulated sources, such as SMLs, along the edges of the TxPIC chip or along the edges of the wafer containing the TxPIC die.
Another disclosed feature is the provision of a redundant laser source or modulated source on the TxPIC to be substituted for faulty laser sources thereby increasing chip yield.
Another disclosed feature is a TxPIC chip platform that includes a submount containing contact leads from the TxPIC chip to be elevated over and spatially separated from the TxPIC chip.
Another disclosed feature is a card probe for checking and testing the operational integrity of the TxPIC chips while as die within a wafer.
Another disclosed feature is the provision of TxPIC chip geometry that substantially prevents stray light from entering the TxPIC output waveguide thereby affecting the channel signal insertion loss.
Another disclosed feature is the provision of at least two TxPIC chips that each have a first set of channel wavelengths where one of the chips is temperature tuned to produce a second set of channel wavelengths different from the first set of channel wavelengths so that the two chips together provide a contiguous set of monotonic increasing or decreasing channel transmission wavelengths.
Another disclosed feature is the deployment of a plurality of TxPIC chips each having an on-chip WDM channel multiplexer where the WDM combined chip outputs are then multiplexed or interleaved. A plurality of channel signals with wider on-chip channel spacing can be combined into a narrower channel spacing through interleaving of the WDM combined channel signals.
Another disclosed feature is the deployment of a plurality of RxPIC chips each having an on-chip WDM channel demultiplexer where the WDM combined chip inputs are first de-interleaved into red/blue wavelength channel groups followed by red and blue wavelength channel group demultiplexing thereby significantly reducing the number of optical connections necessary in a large multi-channel optical transport network.
Another disclosed feature is the provision of a wavelength locking apparatus for a TxPIC chip.
Other objects and attainments together with a fuller understanding of the invention will become apparent and appreciated by referring to the following description and claims taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
In the drawings wherein like reference symbols refer to like parts.
Reference is now made to
The semiconductor laser 12 may be a DFB laser or a DBR laser. While the later has a broader tuning range, the former is more desirable from the standpoint of forming an array of DFB lasers 12 that have peak wavelengths, which are created in MOCVD (metalorganic chemical vapor deposition) employing SAG (selective area growth) techniques to approximate a standardized wavelength grid, such as the ITU grid. There has been difficulty in the integration of DFB lasers with an optical combiner but the careful deployment of SAG will provide a TxPIC 10 that has the required wavelength grid. Thus, the optical SML paths, mentioned in the previous paragraph, are modulated data signal channels where the modulated channel signals are respectively on the standardized grid. Electro-optic modulators 14 may be EAMs (electro-absorption modulators) or MZMs (Mach-Zehnder modulators). Optical combiner 18 may be comprised of a star coupler, a MMI coupler, an Echelle grating or an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). To be noted is that there is an absence in the art, at least to the present knowledge of the inventors herein, of the teaching and disclosure of an array of modulated sources and wavelength selective optical multiplexer, e.g., such as an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) or Echelle grating. In this disclosure, a wavelength selective multiplexer or combiner is defined as one that has less than 1/N insertion loss wherein N is the number of modulated sources being multiplexed. One principal reason is that it is difficult to fabricate, on a repeated basis, an array of lasers with a wavelength grid that simultaneously matches the wavelength grid of the wavelength selective combiner (e.g., an AWG). The AWG is preferred because it can provide a lower loss multiplexing structure. Additionally, an AWG may provide a narrow passband for grid wavelengths of lasers such as DFB lasers.
In
It should be noted that the peak wavelengths of the SOAs 20 on a TxPIC chip 10, such as, for example, SOAs 20 following each modulator 14 of each channel on an N channel TxPIC chip 10, should preferably have a peak wavelength slightly longer, such as, for example, in the range of 10 nm to 80 nm or preferably in the range of 30 nm to 60 nm, than its corresponding semiconductor laser, such as a DFB laser, in order to compensate for band-filling effects in SOAs 20, which effectively shifts the gain peak of an SOA 14 to shorter wavelengths when the SOA is placed into operation. The amount of wavelength shift depends upon the designed bias point of the SOA. A preferred way to accomplish a different peak wavelength in SOAs 20, compared to its corresponding semiconductor DFB laser, is to change the size or thickness of the active region of SOA 20 to change its built-in peak wavelength through the use of SAG or, alternatively, through multiple layer regrowths. The use of SAG in fabrication of chip 10 is discussed in more detail in U.S. Pat. No. 7,058,246, which is incorporated herein by its reference.
Also, attention should be drawn to the optimization of active optical component to active optical component spacing relative to substrate thickness to minimize thermal cross-talk between active optical components on TxPIC chip 10. Inter-component spacing of active optical components, such as DFB lasers 12, modulators 14 and SOAs 20, is, in part, driven by thermal crosstalk, e.g., changes in temperature operation of these components that affect the optical characteristics of neighboring active optical components, such as their wavelength or their bias point. Therefore, these active optical components should be sufficiently spaced in order to minimize thermal crosstalk affecting neighboring component operation. Component separation is also important with respect to substrate thickness. Ideally, the thickness of the substrate should be kept to a maximum in order to minimize wafer breakage, particularly in the case of highly brittle InP wafers, as well as breakage at the chip level during handling or processing. On the other hand, the substrate should not be too thick rendering cleaving yields lower or resulting in excess heating and thermal crosstalk due to thicker substrates. As an example, for a 500 μm thick InP substrate, a preferred inter-component separation is in the range of about 200 μm to about 600 μm.
Reference is now made to
Reference is now made to cross section views of various representative embodiments of a TxPIC chip 10. These cross-sectional views are not to scale, particularly in reference to the active waveguide core 42 of the disclosed semiconductor chips. Chips 10 are made from InP wafers and the layers are epitaxially deposited using an MOCVD reactor and specifically comprise DFB lasers 12, EAMs. As seen in the cross-sectional view of
The Q active region 42 and the waveguide core 36 layer extend through all of the integrated optical components. If desired, the laser, and the SOA 20, if present, can be composed of a different active layer structure than the region of the EAM 14. In this embodiment, the Q waveguiding layer 36 provides most of the optical confinement and guiding through each section of the chip 10.
The chip 10 is completed with the growth of NID-InP layer 44, cladding layer 46, which is either n-InP or NID-InP, and contact layer 48 comprising p++-InGaAs. Cladding layer 46 as well as its overlying contact layer portion is selectively etched away either over the EMLs or over the field of optical combiner 18 and regrown so that the partition results in p-InP layer 46A and p++-InGaAs layer 48A in regions of DFB lasers 12 and EAMs 14 and a NID-InP layer 46B and a passivation layer 48B in region of the field of optical combiner 18. The reason for this etch and regrowth is to render the optical combiner field 18 non-absorbing to the optical channel signals propagating thought this optical passive device. More is said and disclosed relative to this matter in U.S. Pat. No. 7,058,246, and incorporated herein by its reference.
Chip 10 is completed with appropriate contact pads or electrodes, the p-side electrodes 44 and 46 shown respectively for DFB laser 12 and EAM 14. If substrate 32 is semiconductive, i.e., n-InP, then an n-side electrode is provided on the bottom substrate 32. If substrate 32 is insulating, i.e., InP:Fe, the electrical contact to the n-side is provided through a via (not shown) from the top of the chip down to n-InP layer 34. The use of a semi-insulating substrate 32 provides the advantage of minimizing electrical cross-talk between optical components, particularly active electrical components in aligned arrays, such as DFB lasers 12 and EAMs 14. The inter-component spacing between adjacent DFB laser 12 and EAM 14 may be about 250 μm or more to minimize cross-talk at data rates of 10 Gbits per second.
Reference is now made to
Reference is now made to
In SSC 22 of TxPIC chip 10 of
TxPIC chip 10 is fabricated through employment of MOCVD where, in forming active region 42 across all of the chips in an InP wafer, a patterned SiO2 mask is positioned over the growth plane of the as-grown InP substrate. The patterned SiO2 mask has a plurality of openings of different widths and masking spaces of different widths so that the growth rates in the mask openings will depend upon the area (width) of the opening as well as the width of masks on the sides of the openings. The reason that the mask widths play a role in what is deposited in the openings is that the reactants, such as molecules of Ga and In, in particular In, breakup or crack from their carrier gas quickly at regions of the SiO2 mask and will migrate off the mask into the mask openings. For example, quantum well layers grown in wider open areas tend to grow slower and have a different composition than quantum wells grown on narrower open areas. This effect may be employed to vary quantum well bandgap across the plane of the substrate for each of the DFB lasers 12, EAMs 14 and the field of the combiner 18. The corresponding differences in quantum well energy can exceed 60 meV, which is sufficient to create regions having a low absorption loss at the lasing wavelength. The SiO2 masks are removed after the growth of active region 42. Additional growth and a subsequent etchback and regrowth are then performed, as previously discussed, to form a continuous buried waveguide integrated transmitter chip.
An optical transport module may be fabricated employing a separate RxPIC chip and a TxPIC chip. However, a TRxPIC chip is employed that includes both transmitter and receiver components. The transmitter and receiver components share a common AWG or may be two AWGs, a first AWG for the transmitter portion of the TRxPIC and a second AWG for the receiver portion of the TRxPIC. In this case, the AWGs may be mirrored imaged AWGs as known in the art. Embodiments of TRxPICs 10 are disclosed in
Reference is first made to
Alternatively, it should be noted that the input signal to TRxPIC 10 may be one or more service channel signals, for example, from another optical receiver or TRxPIC transmitter. AWG 50 would route these signals to appropriate in-chip photodetectors 15 and taken off-chip as electrical service signals for further processing.
In the embodiments herein deploying an AWG as an optical combiner, the AWG may be designed to be polarization insensitive, although this is not critical to the design of the TxPIC 10. In general, an AWG does not need to be polarization insensitive because the propagating polarization modes from the respective DFB laser sources to the AWG are principally in the TE mode. However, due to multimode propagation in the AWG, the TM mode may develop in one or more arms of the AWG in a worst case situation. There are ways to combat this issue which are to (1) employ polarization selective elements, (2) place a TM mode filter at the output of the AWG and/or (3) make the SOAs 20, such as in the case of the embodiment of
The design of the passive output waveguide 26A of AWG 50 of TRxPIC chip 10, or any chip 10 embodiment output waveguide disclosed herein, involves several additional considerations. The total power coupled by the AWG output waveguide 26 into optical fiber link should be sufficient to allow low error rate transmission. It is, thus, desirable that the output waveguide have a low insertion loss to increase the coupled power. However, it is also desirable that the power density in the AWG output waveguide 26 be below the threshold limit for two photon absorption. For an AWG output waveguide, such as waveguide 26, this corresponds to approximately 20 mW total average power for all channels for a waveguide width in the range of approximately 1 μm to 3 μm. Additionally, it is also desirable that output waveguide 26 be oriented at an angle relative to an axis perpendicular to the plane of the output face or facet of chip 10, such as at an angle of about 7°, to reduce the capture of stray light emanating from the on-chip EMLs in order to maintain a high extinction ratio for signal channels. More will be said about this issue in connection with the embodiments of
Reference is now made to
Reference is now made to
Another alternative approach for a TRxPIC 10 is illustrated in
Manufacturing variances in waveguide layer thicknesses and grating periodicity can cause significant variance in emission wavelength of DFB lasers fabricated on the same wafer and substantial lot-to-lot variance. Depending upon the fabrication process employed, the absolute accuracy of the DFB/DBR wavelength may be greater than about 1 nm due to the empirical process variances. For a single discrete DFB laser, control of heat-sink temperature permits tuning to within less than 0.1 nm. Consequently, it is desirable to monitor and lock the emission wavelength of each DFB laser in the array of the TxPIC to its assigned channel wavelength while also maintaining the desired output power of each channel. The light output of at least one laser may be provided as input to a filter element having a wavelength-dependent response, such as an optical transmission filter. The optical output of the filter is received by an optical detector. Changes in lasing wavelength will result in a change in detected optical power. The lasers are then adjusted (e.g., by changing the drive current and/or local temperature) to tune the wavelength. If there are SOAs or PIN photodiodes on TxPIC 10 integrated between the DFB lasers and the AWG in each signal channel, such as suggested in
Reference is made to
As shown in
As noted in
To facilitate microwave packaging, the OEO REGEN 79 is preferably flip-chip mounted to a submount to form electrical connections to the several IC control chips. Also, note that IC control chips can be flip-chip bonded to OEO REGEN 79. Also, further note that the OEO REGEN 79 may comprise two chips, one being TxPIC chip 10 and the other being RxPIC chip 80.
Referring now to
Optical combiner 110 multiplexes the optically modulated signals of different wavelengths, and provides a combined output signal on waveguide 112 to output facet 113 of TxPIC chip 100A for optical coupling to an optical fiber (not shown). SOAs 108(1) . . . 108(N) may be positioned along the optical path after the modulators 106(1) . . . 106(N) in order to amplify the modulated signals prior to being multiplexed and transmitted over the fiber coupled to TxPIC chip 100A. The addition of off-chip PDs 101(1) . . . 101(N) may absorb some of the power emitted from the back facet of DFB lasers 102(1) . . . 102(N), but, of course does not directly contribute to insertion losses of light coupled from the front facet of DFB lasers 102(1) . . . 102(N) to other active on-chip components. The utility of off-chip PDs 101(1) . . . 101(N) is also beneficial for measuring the power of DFB lasers 102(1) . . . 102(N) during a calibration run, and also during its operation, in addition to being helpful with the initial testing of TxPIC 100A.
In
Conventional semiconductor laser fabrication processes for DFB and DBR lasers permits substantial control over laser wavelength by selecting a grating periodicity. However, variations in the thickness of semiconductor layers or grating periodicity may cause some individual lasers to lase at a wavelength that is significantly off from their target channel wavelength. In one approach, each laser and its corresponding SOAs are selected to permit substantial control of lasing wavelength (e.g., several nanometers) while achieving a pre-selected channel power.
The DFB laser may be a single section laser. Additionally, the DFB laser may be a multi-section DFB or DBR laser where some sections are optimized for power and others to facilitate wavelength tuning. Multi-section DFB lasers with good tuning characteristics are known in the art. For example, multi-section DFB lasers are described in the paper by Thomas Koch et al., “Semiconductor Lasers For Coherent Optical Fiber Communications,” pp. 274-293, IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 8(3), March 1990, which is incorporated herein by its reference. In a single or multi-section DFB laser, the lasing wavelength of the DFB laser is tuned by varying the current or currents to the DFB laser, among other techniques.
Alternatively, the DFB laser may have a microstrip heater or other localized heater to selectively control the temperature of the laser. In one approach, the entire TxPIC may be cooled with a single TEC thermally coupled to the substrate of the TxPIC such as illustrated in
The array of DFB lasers 102 may have an array bias temperature, T0, and each laser can have an individual bias temperature, T0+T1 through the employment of individual laser heaters 102A1 . . . 102AN. In
Reference is now made to the embodiment of
Thus, from the foregoing, it can be seen that during a test mode, prior to cleaving chip 100C from its wafer, PDs in
Reference is now made to the embodiment of
Reference now is made to
It should be noted that both SOAs, such as SOAs 108, or photodetectors, such as photodiodes 109, can further serve as optical modulators or as variable optical attenuators, in addition to their roles as monitors. Multiple of these functions can be performed simultaneously by a single photodetector, such as photodiode 124, or an integrated, on-chip photodiode at a first or higher order output of the multiplexer, or the functions can be distributed among multiple photodetectors. On-chip photodetectors can vary power by changing insertion loss and, therefore, act as in-line optical circuit attenuators. They also can be modulated at frequencies substantially transparent to the signal channel wavelength grid with little effect to modulate data that is not necessarily the customer's or service provider's data.
Additionally, optical combiner 110 may include integrated photodiodes at the output of optical combiner 110 to facilitate in locking the laser wavelengths and/or tuning of the grid of optical combiner 110 to reduce insertion losses. Additionally, PD 124 may be utilized to determine the high-frequency characteristics of modulators 106. In particular, PD 124 and associated electronic circuitry may be employed to determine a bias voltage and modulation voltage swing, i.e., the peak-to-peak voltage, required to achieve a desired modulator extinction ratio (ER) and chirp as well as to characterize the eye response of each modulator through application of test signals to each of the EA modulators 106. The bias voltage and voltage swing of the modulator may be varied. An advantage of having PD 124 integrated on chip 100E is that, after initial optical component characterization, the photodetector may be discarded by being cleaved off TxPIC chip 100E. An arrangement where photodiodes are integrated at the output of combiner 110 on the TxPIC chip is disclosed in
Although particular configurations of SOAs and PDs are shown in
Referring now to
Reference is now made to
Generally speaking from MOCVD fabrication experience as well as from backend chip processing experience, the component yield on any PIC chip with multiple optical components tends to decrease relative to either optical PIC chips formed at the edges of the wafer or optical components formed along the edges of the PIC chip. There are several reasons for this attribute. First, at the InP wafer level, an outer perimeter region of the wafer tends to have the greatest material non-uniformity and fabrication variances. An edge region of a PIC may correspond to one of the perimeter regions of the wafer and, hence, also have such significant variances. Second, the cleaving of the wafer produces the PIC dies. The cleaving process may adversely affect the edge optical components of the PIC die or these edge components may experience the greatest amount of handling.
Statistical methods are employed to form a map of edge regions having a reduced yield compared with a central region of a chip or die, or at the wafer level. The redundancy number of dummy optical components required in an edge region is selected to achieve a high yield of wafers where at least one of the dummy optical components is operable for testing or replacement of another failed component. As an illustrative example, if the yield in a central PIC region was 90% but dropped to 60% in an edge region, each dummy optical component in the edge region could include one or more redundant optical components to increase the effective dummy optical component yield to be at least comparable to the central region. It will also be understood that placing dummy optical components in edge regions may be practiced in connection with previously described embodiments.
To be noted is that the output waveguides 26 of AWG 50 in
It should be noted that with respect to the foregoing TxPIC chip and TRxPIC chip embodiments, provision should be made for circumvention of free carrier absorption due to two photon absorption in passive waveguides 26 from AWG 50. The output waveguide length from the optical combiner or AWG must allow sufficient output power to permit low error rate transmission but also must be below the limit for 2 photon absorption. The 2 photon absorption limit is about 20 mW total average power for all signal channels for an approximately 1 μm to 3 μm wide output waveguide.
Two photon absorption can occur in passive waveguide structures, particularly if sufficiently long to induce photon absorption in their waveguide core. There are several ways to circumvent this problem. First, reduce the peak intensity in the waveguide, either transversely or laterally or both. By rendering the mode to be less confined, i.e., making the mode larger, the chance for the onset for two photon absorption will be significantly reduced if not eliminated. Second, the peak intensity of the optical mode may be shifted so as not to be symmetric within the center of the waveguide, i.e., the peak intensity of the mode is asymmetric with respect to the cladding or confining layers of the guide as well as the center position of the waveguide core. This asymmetry can be built into the chip during its growth process. Third, increase the Eg of core waveguides/cladding layers. In all these cases, the point is to reduce the peak intensity in some manner so that the threshold for two photon absorption is not readily achieved.
Another approach to reduce or otherwise eliminate the free carrier absorption due to two photon absorption is by hydrogenation of the waveguides in situ in an MOCVD reactor or in a separate oven. The process includes employing AsH3, PH3 and/or H2 which creates H+ atom sites in the waveguide layer material during component fabrication which dissipate or rid the waveguide of these absorption carriers.
Reference is now made to
Reference is now made to
Reference is now directed to the TxPIC chip 10 in
Pad staggering can also be accomplished in several different ways. First, additional passive waveguide sections are included to stagger the locations of the optical modulators relative to a die or chip edge. For example, a curved passive waveguide section can be included in every other DFB laser to offset the location of the optical modulator and its contact pads. Second, the contact pads of modulator 14 are geometrically positioned relative to the chip edges to be staggered so that straight leads can be easily designed to extend from edge contact pads to the staggered modulator pads.
Reference is made to
Reference is now made to the embodiment shown in
Each of the electro-optical modulators 14 of TxPIC chip 10 requires at least one microwave drive signal 200 and at least one common stripline 198. However, in the embodiment here, two common striplines 198 are utilized to reduce crosstalk between the striplines of adjacent striplines to be connected to adjacent modulators 14 on chip 10. RF striplines, comprising striplines 198 and 200, are formed on an array connector substrate 195, which may be made of a ceramic material, and which is spaced, such as by 50 μm, from the surface of TxPIC chip 10 as seen at airgap 193. The forward ends of striplines 198 and 200 are respectively contacted to p-contact pads 173 and common n-contact pads 175 by means of bonding wires 196B as shown in
Chip 10 may be supported on CoC submount 190 which includes patterned conductive leads 191 formed on a portion of submount 190. These leads may, for example, be comprised of TiW/Au. Submount 190 may, for example, be comprised of AlN. These patterned leads 191 end at contact or bonding pads 191A along the rear edge of chip 10. The bias signals provided on leads 191 are transferred to on-chip contact or bonding pads 191B (which may have a 100 μm pitch on TxPIC 10) by means of a wire bonded ribbon 196A, or alternatively, a flexible circuit cable, where the respective ribbon leads are connected at one end to contact or bonding pads 191A and at the other end to respective contact or bonding pads 191B for DFB lasers 12. The additional patterned leads are utilized for connecting to on-chip laser source heaters and on-chip monitoring photodiodes.
An important feature of the embodiment of
The assembly in the embodiment of
A conventional alternative to the deployment of microwave striplines 197 is to use wire bonding connections. However, it is not practical to use conventional wirebonds to route a large number of microwave signals to PIC bonding pads. This is due, in part, to the comparatively large area of the PIC that would be required to accommodate all the wire bond pads, and the wirebonds would have to traverse a distance as long as several millimeters to reach all of the modulators. Also, the length of such wirebonds would create an excessively large wire inductance and, therefore, would not be feasible. Additionally, the microwave cross-talk between the bonding wires would be excessive. The high speed application required by TxPIC 10 for higher speed data rates requires a transmission line with impedance matching to the drive circuit which is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with wire bonding. Thus, it is more suitable to deploy a flexible circuit microwave interconnect, such as the type shown at 196A, to couple RF or microwave striplines 197 formed on substrate 195 to contact pads 173 and 175 of each modulator 14. A flexible microwave interconnect is an alternative to wirebonds 196A for two reasons. First, they provide a reduction in assembly complexity. Second, they provide reduced inductance for wirebonds of equivalent length. A flexible circuit microwave interconnect is a microwave transmission line fabricated on a flexible membrane, e.g., two traces spaced apart with a signal trace therebetween to form a co-planar microwave waveguide on a flexible membrane, and providing at least one ground stripline for each signal stripline. However, in the embodiment of
It should be realized that TxPIC 10 may be flip chip mounted to a submount, such as an alumina, aluminum nitride (AlN), or a beryllium oxide (BeO) submount. The submount is provided with patterned contact pads. In one approach, the submount includes vias and microwave waveguides for providing the signals to the modulators. Conventional flip chip soldering techniques are employed to mount the PIC electrical pads to such a submount. The solder is preferably a solder commonly used for lasers, such as gold-tin, or lead-tin. A gold-gold thermo-compression bonding process may also be employed. General background information on flip-chip packaging technology is described in the book by Lau, et al., Electronic Packaging: Design, Materials, Process, and Reliability, McGraw Hill, N.Y. (1998), which is incorporated herein by its reference. Some background information on microwave circuit interconnect technology is described in the book by Pozar, Microwave Engineering, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. NY (1998).
There is a significant packaging cost associated with providing separate DC contact pads for driving each semiconductor laser, such as in an array of DFB lasers or DBR lasers. Driving a group of semiconductor lasers simultaneously reduces the number of DC pin outs and DC interconnect paths required, which permits a substantial reduction in PIC area and packaging complexity, reducing PIC costs. As an example of one approach, all of the DFB lasers sources 12 on a TxPIC 10 are driven in parallel. Alternatively, groups of laser sources, e.g., three laser sources, are coupled in parallel. For multi-section laser sources having a primary drive section and a tuning section, the drive sections of groups of lasers may be driven in parallel. Driving laser sources in parallel reduces the packaging cost and the number of DC pin outs required. However, it also requires that the laser sources have a low incidence of electrical short defects. Moreover, in embodiments in which groups of laser sources are driven in parallel, it is desirable that the laser sources have similar threshold currents, quantum efficiencies, threshold voltages, and series resistances. Alternatively, the lasers may be driven in parallel, as described above, with the current to each laser source being tuned by trimming a resistive element couple in the electrical drive line to the laser source. Such trimming may be accomplished by laser ablation or standard wafer fabrication technology etching. The former may occur in chip or wafer form whereas the later is in wafer form. The trimming is done after the L-I characteristics are measured and determined for each laser.
Reference is now made to
With the foregoing processing in mind, reference is made to the flowchart of
Reference is now made to
In
By applying a voltage in at least one arm of the MZM, the refractive index is changed, which alters the phase of the light passing through that arm. By appropriate selection of the voltage in one or both arms, a close to 180° relative phase shift between the two light paths may be achieved, resulting in a high extinction ratio at the modulator output. As described below in more detail, MZMs have the advantage that they provide superior control over chirp. However, MZM modulators require more PIC area than EAMs and may require a somewhat more complicated design as well for high-speed modulation, such as 40 Gb/s or more.
Reference is now made to
An EAM or MZM may be characterized by its extinction ratio, which is governed by its on/off ratio. A high extinction ratio increases the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the optical receiver such that a high extinction ratio is generally desirable in order to achieve a low bit error rate (BER) at a downstream optical receiver. A modulator should also possess low insertion loss, ILout(dB)=10 log10 Pout/Pin, corresponding to the loss between its input and output ports. A modulator typically also has a chirp parameter, which expresses the ratio of phase-to-amplitude modulation. The chirp parameter is proportional to the ratio: Δn/Δα, where Δn is the differential change in refractive index and Δα is the differential change in absorption.
The modulator chirp may be adjusted to compensate for chromatic dispersion in the fiber link. Typically, a modulator having a negative chirp parameter is desirable in order to achieve a maximum transmission distance on standard optical fibers having negative chromatic dispersion. In chirping, the laser wavelength may move to the short-wavelength side (negative chirp) or to the long wavelength side (positive chirp) as the amplitude of the output light is modulated via the modulator. A negative chirp is desirable to suppress dispersion induced broadening of optical pulses that occurs in a conventional optical fiber at certain wavelengths.
An electro-absorption modulator (EAM) has an optical absorption loss that typically increases with an applied voltage. In an EAM, a bias voltage may be selected so that the electro-absorptive material is biased to have a high differential change in absorption loss for microwave voltage inputs.
A Mach Zehnder phase modulator utilizes changes in refractive index in the modulator arms to modulate a light source. A Mach Zehnder modulator, such as MZM 240 in
As illustrated in
The typical absorption edge curve 281 is shown in
As shown in
In quantum wells, the shift in absorption edge can be more pronounced than that in bulk layers due to quantum size effects. By appropriately selecting the band edge in the modulator to be above the absorption edge, a large shift in refractive index is possible for quantum well structures. Details of designing quantum well structures for modulators are described in the book by Vladimir V. Mitin, et al., Quantum Heterostructures: Microelectronics and Optoelectronics, Cambridge University Press, NY (1999).
The transmission lines used to couple microwave signals to the optical modulators are preferably impedance matched. This is particularly important for traveling wave modulator embodiments that may require more microwave power due to the increased interaction length. Also, resistors may be integrated into the PIC and are coupled to each microwave transmission lines to achieve impedance matching.
By varying the quantum well structure, the absorption edge may be shifted relative to the lasing wavelength to increase the relative effective absorption and changes in refractive index. An electroabsorption modulator is commonly operated in a regime in which increasing reverse bias voltage increases the absorption. Typically, quantum well electroabsorption modulators must be operated in a high absorption region to obtain a negative chirp, leading to high insertion losses. See, e.g., the article, “Design of InGaAsP Multiple Quantum-Well Fabry-Perot Modulators For Soliton Control,” Robert Killey et al., pp 1408-1414, IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 17(8), August 1999, which is incorporated herein by its reference. Also, an important advantage of an EAM, particularly relative to use in a PIC, is that it occupies less space on a PIC chip than a MZM.
In contrast, in a phase modulator, such as a Mach Zehnder modulator, the reverse bias voltage may be selected for any voltage range over which there is a substantial change in refractive index. This permits the voltage bias and voltage swing of a quantum well Mach Zehnder modulator to be selected to achieve a negative chirp with a low insertion loss compared with an electro-absorption modulator. It will be understood that any known Mach Zehnder modulation technique may be employed, including both single-arm and two-arm modulation. However, using two-arm modulation of MZMs is desirable to control chirp. MQW Mach Zehnder modulators have the benefit that a controllable negative chirp may be achieved at a bias voltage for which insertion losses are acceptable. The modulator, for example, may be a band-edge Mach Zehnder modulator. In a band-edge MZM, the bandgap wavelength of the MZM arm sections is slightly shorter in wavelength than the channel wavelength. The absorption edge of a band-edge MZM is thus near the channel wavelength such that comparatively small voltage swings are required to achieve a large shift in refractive index. An advantage of band-edge MZMs is that comparatively small voltages and/or arm lengths are required due to the large refractive index shifts possible. However, each band-edge MZM modulator requires that its band edge be selected to be close to the channel wavelength of its corresponding laser. Multiple regrowths or selective area growth techniques may be used to adjust the band edge energy of each MZM relative to its corresponding laser.
Also, any known velocity-matched traveling wave modulator configuration may be beneficially employed to improve the efficiency of the modulator for achieving high data rates. In a traveling wave modulator the electrode of the modulator is used as a transmission line. In a traveling wave modulator the velocity of microwave signals traveling along the modulator electrodes is preferably matched to the velocity of light traveling along the optical waveguide of the modulator. A traveling wave modulator has a high 3-dB bandwidth. Additionally, a traveling wave modulator may have a substantial optical interaction length. The long potential interaction length of a traveling wave modulator permits greater freedom in selecting a bias voltage and voltage swing to achieve a controlled chirp, a high extinction ratio, and a low insertion loss.
The bias voltage of the modulator may be selected to achieve a negative chirp appropriate for a particular fiber link relative to its fiber length and fiber type. Also, a different DC bias may be selected for each modulator in the TxPIC chip. For example, an EA modulator preferably has a bandgap that is between about 20 nm to about 80 nm shorter in wavelength than that of its laser for optimal chirp and extinction ratio characteristics. In principle, each modulator could have an active region that is grown (using regrowth or selective area regrowth) to have a predetermined difference in bandgap with respect to its laser. However, in a TxPIC for providing a substantial number of channel wavelengths, this may require a comparatively complicated growth process. It is preferable, in terms of device fabrication, to have a small number of different active layer bandgaps. Consequently, it is within the scope of this invention to independently DC bias each on-chip modulator to adjust its desired chirp characteristics. As an illustrative example, a 1V change in DC bias (e.g., from −2V to −3V) in an EAM can accommodate a DFB laser wavelength variation of about 25 nm.
It should be noted that it may be difficult, in some cases, to achieve the desired chirp, extinction ratio and insertion loss using this biasing technique. Thus, as discussed earlier, it may be necessary to vary both the peak wavelength of the laser array as well as that of each modulator. A preferred technique to realize such a laser array is with selective area growth (SAG), which is disclosed and discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,058,246. In a preferred selective area growth approach, a pattern of mask openings is fabricated in SiON layer or another suitable dielectric material. The size of the mask openings and or the width of the masks forming the openings for the different DFB lasers, which are to be fabricated, are varied so that there is a resulting wavelength variation across the DFB array. Similarly, the modulator wavelength is varied by having a larger opening (to create a larger bandgap) multiple quantum well region that varies across the array. Note, however, that the DFB wavelength is ultimately determined by the grating pitch. The necessity for selective area growth across the array arises from the need to shift the gain peak across the array. In general, better laser characteristics are obtained if the gain peak is in close proximately, e.g., within about 10 nm, or somewhat longer wavelength than the lasing wavelength selected by the grating. The placement of this peak does not require high precision. Thus, a different SAG window may not need to be employed for each laser. The alignment of the modulator bandgap to that of the laser is the more precise parameter, especially where the chirp, low insertion loss, and high extinction ratio are required. Thus, in almost all cases, the openings of the SAG mask as well as the mask widths will need to be varied across the array of modulators.
The extinction ratio of the modulator may be characterized during an initial testing, such as by employing a PIC optical detection element to form eye diagrams as a function of the bias voltage and voltage swing of the modulator for a simulated series of modulator “ones” and “zeros.” The chirp may be characterized at the TxPIC chip level during testing employing known techniques, such as by measuring the linewidth of a particular channel as it is modulated. Calibration data of bias voltages and voltage swings required to achieve a desired extinction ratio for selected chirp levels may be stored on a computer readable medium. Additionally, calibration data of insertion loss as a function of modulator parameters may also be acquired to permit the SOA drive current and/or PIN photodiode bias to be correspondingly adjusted to maintain a desired channel power as the modulator parameters are varied. As previously indicated, the calibration data for controlling modulator and SOA and/or PIN photodiode parameters can be stored in a programmable memory, such as an EPROM, and packaged with the PIC for use by the end user or customer.
The modulator operating parameters of bias voltage and voltage swing may be controlled through feedback data received from an optical receiver via the optical link. In a high data rate channel close to the dispersion limit, a positive chirp increases the BER while a negative chirp decreases the BER. Similarly, a high extinction ratio tends to decrease the BER while a low extinction ratio tends to increase the BER. A forward error correction (FEC) chip in the optical receiver may be employed to determine the BER of each signal channel. This information may be forwarded to the TxPIC transmitter in a variety of ways, such as through an electrical control line or through an optical service channel. The operating parameters of bias voltage and voltage swing of the modulator of a channel are adjusted using data received back relative to its channel BER. Chirp control of the modulators is derived from information received relative to the BER data from the receiver communicated to the TxPIC transmitter or transceiver via an optical service channel. An electronic controller in the TxPIC transmitter employs this data to tune the bias voltage and/or voltage swing of the modulator to adjust its chirp to achieve the desired BER based upon characteristics of a particular fiber type comprising the optical span or link.
The chirp parameter of a quantum well EA modulator is a function of the change in absorption characteristics and refractive index of the modulator with bias voltage. Typically, a voltage bias may be selected over a range within which the chirp parameter shifts from positive to negative. However, as previously indicated, it is preferred to operate with negative bias voltage and negative swing to produce the best chirp with the highest extinction ratio (ER) as indicated in connection with respect to
As previously indicated, it is desirable to have a controlled chirp selected to achieve a maximum fiber transmission length appropriate for the channel wavelength and the fiber type. One way to adjust the characteristics of the optical modulator is to select one or more layers in the absorber section to have a controlled absorption edge with respect to the lasing wavelength. Methods to control the absorption characteristics of the modulator as a function of applied electric field include using regrowth techniques to grow materials with selected composition and thickness in the modulator region and using MOCVD selective growth techniques to grow quantum wells in the modulator having a pre-selected difference in absorption band edge compared with the laser section. Alternatively, the modulator may comprise cascaded or tandem electro-absorption modulators, one of which is illustrated in FIG. 14 of U.S. Pat. No. 7,079,715. A first electro-absorption modulator may be used to generate periodic string of pulses at a clock frequency (e.g., 10 GHz). The pulses may be amplified by an on-chip SOA. A second electro-absorption modulator may be used to provide a gating function to put data on the generated pulses. One benefit of this embodiment is that it permits the use of a RZ signal format. Additionally, by appropriately setting the electro-absorption modulator parameters, a controlled chirp may be achieved. The SOA provides compensation for the insertion loss of the modulator.
In another embodiment, a saturable absorber may be coupled to the output of the modulator. In this case, a first modulator stage, such as a multi-section EA modulator, may be used to generate optical data pulses. An integrated saturable absorber section (SAS) receives the output of the first modulator stage and has non-linear transmission properties. If the output of first modulator stage is low, corresponding to an off-state, the SAS is absorptive, further decreasing the amplitude of the signal in the off-state. However, if the output of the first modulator stage is high, the absorption of the SAS saturates, resulting in comparatively low losses for the on-state. A benefit of employing a SAS is that it increases the extinction ratio of a modulator.
The SAS can be placed along the optical signal source path anywhere after the modulator. For example, the SAS is placed immediately after the modulator or after a following on-chip SOA. An important benefit of placing the SAS downstream from the SOA is that it suppresses SOA ASE noise for “zero” signals, resulting in an improvement of the OSNR. The SAS is preferably fabricated from a quantum well active region that has saturable losses at the channel signal wavelength. The SAS may be a reverse biased, partially unpumped, or completely unpumped region. Any known technique to reduce the recovery time of the SAS may be employed, such as ion implantation. An unpumped SAS has the benefit of simple fabrication. However, a reverse biased SAS may provide more stable operating characteristics for higher data rates and modulation.
Generally speaking, the design of the modulator may include theoretical or empirical studies to select a quantum well structure having an absorption edge that varies with applied voltage relative to the channel wavelength such that a desired extinction ratio and negative chirp may be achieved. The extinction ratio and chirp effects depend also upon the bias voltage of the modulator, which should be set to achieve the desired chirp with an acceptable insertion loss.
It should be understood that in connection with all of the modulator embodiments described herein, a SOA within the optical signal path may be employed to compensate for insertion loss associated with adjusting the bias voltage of the modulator to achieve a desired chirp. The present invention permits simultaneous wavelength locking, selection of output channel power, and tuning of modulator operating characteristics to achieve a desired extinction ratio and chirp. Also, if desired, an electronic controller for the PIC may include calibration data and/or feedback algorithms for regulating these parameters. The chirp parameter may be set in the factory or in the field.
Another feature herein is the employment of SAG for fabrication of band-edge (BE) MZ modulators so that their size can be monotonically changed across the modulators in the modulator array to have appropriate absorption curves relative to its respective laser source. The use of SAG provides an approach where the size of such a modulator is reduced compared to other types of modulators, since they are shorter in length, thereby taking up less area or real estate on the PIC chip. Such BE MZ modulators may be deployed in less costly TxPICs with tunable chirp.
Reference is now made to
TxPICs 300 and 302 are tuned via TEC at T1 so that the first TxPIC 300 has a wavelength grid of λ1, λ2, λ3, and λ4 and tuned via TEC at T2 so that the second TxPIC 302 has a wavelength grid of λ1, λ6, λ7, and λ8, forming a total wavelength grid 308 as illustrated in
Reference is now made to
The output from interleaver 318 also includes a 2% tap 320 for diverting a portion of the output via fiber 321 to wavelength locker 322. Wavelength locker includes conversion of the optical signal into one or more electrical signals, amplification of the electrical signals and partitioning of the signals into a plurality of separate signals corresponding to individual elements of the modulated sources, such as the source wavelength. The locker 322 deploys signal filters for each of the wavelengths relative to each respective SML array wavelength grid to determine if the respective grid wavelengths are off the desired wavelength grid. If a wavelength deviates from the desired wavelength, a correction signal is generated and transmitted, via a digital to analog converter (DAC), to the respective TxPIC 310 for wavelength change via lines 323. The correction signal is employed at PIC circuitry at the TxPIC chip to either change the current applied to the laser source to change the laser wavelength to the correct operating wavelength or change the current applied to laser source heater to change the wavelength to the correct operating wavelength. Of course, other tuning methods as known in the art may be utilized.
The interleaving as shown in
The channel multiplexing system in
Reference is now made to
At the receiver side, there is a group (eight in the example here) of RxPIC chips 340 each comprising, at its input, an optical decombiner 344, such as an AWG, and a plurality (four in the example here) of photodiodes, which may be PIN photodiodes or avalanche photodiodes. To be noted is the lineup of the RxPIC chips 340 on the receiver side is not the same as the lineup of TxPICs 310 on the transmitter side, i.e., the RxPIC chip lineup is RxPIC 1, 5, 2, 6, 3, 7, 4 and 8. Also, at the input from optical link 328, there is a 4×1 de-interleaver 330 that de-interleaves groups of channel signals into pairs of red/blue signal groups corresponding to respective groups of channel signals at TxPICs on the transmitter side. Thus, for example, the output on waveguide 332(1) would be eight channels, or two groups each of four channels, with channel spacing of 200 GHz or 8×200 GHz. By red/blue groups, it is meant groups of shorter and longer signal channels. Thus, again, in the case of waveguide 332(1), the red group (relative to channels from TxPIC 1) is λ1-λ4 (4×200 GHz) and the blue group (relative to channels from TxPIC 5) is λ17-λ20 (4×200 GHz).
The advantage of the network deployment of
Also, the de-interleaver/channel RxPIC combination significantly reduces costs through the reduction in the number of required demultiplexers 334 (only four instead of eight in the example here) as well as the number of optical fiber connections. Relative to the concept of providing less fiber connections in an optical transmitter module, note that the number of demultiplexers in the embodiment here are cut in half and, correspondingly, also a number of fiber connections are cut in half. Further, four channels being integrated on each RxPIC chip translates to a four to one reduction in necessary fiber connections compared to the conventional deployment of discrete signal channel components presently deployed throughout today's optical transport networks.
The interleaver 317 and de-interleaver 330 are currently available in different forms such as from JDS Uniphase, e.g., their IBC interleaver, e.g., 50/100 GHz or 100/200 GHz passive interleavers.
It is within the scope of this invention that the optical transport network of
Reference is now made to
While tones have been chosen to illustrate a particular form of optical modulation useful for channel identification and signal processing for wavelength locking, other modulation formats such as multitone, spread spectrum, square wave, tone burst, etc. are envisioned, depending on specific signal processing requirements. Similarly, while the variable optical attenuator role of the photodetectors has been discussed in connection with equalization of optical channel powers emerging from the TxPIC, more general relationships among individual optical channel powers are envisioned. In particular, pre-emphasis, i.e., the deliberately arranging unequal individual optical channel powers from the transmitter to compensate for channel-dependent unequal losses in transmission links, is envisioned and enabled by the variable optical attenuator function on individual optical channels.
It should be further noted that on-chip photodiodes can be deployed to encode the signal channel with additional information useful for signal channel identification, wavelength locking, or data transmission additional to that encoded by modulators 14. As an illustration, one such photodiode can have its bias voltage modulated by a sine wave or square waves, unique to the particular optical channel, to label the optical channel for use in channel identification and wavelength locking without demultiplexing the optical channels. Other modulations (tone burst, spread spectrum, multitone, etc.) can be used similarly for these purposes. On-chip photodiodes can also be used as voltage variable optical attenuators, useful for controlling individual optical channel powers.
The passband of an optical component, such as an AWG, a WDM filter or fiber grating(s), in a transmitter TxPIC 10 can be employed also as a way of directly locking the laser source wavelength or multiple laser source wavelengths in the TxPIC transmitter to the passband of such an optical component.
An AWG, for example, has a Gaussian passband for each laser source wavelength, and can be employed as a frequency differentiator in order to lock the laser source wavelength directly to the AWG passband. The locking can be achieved by dithering the drive currents of the corresponding laser sources at a low frequency, such as 1 KHz, 2 KHz . . . 10 KHz, one of which is illustrated at 370 in
The amplitude variations 374 resulting from dithering are low frequency (low KHz range) which can be ignored or may be filtered out at the network optical receiver end and will have negligible impact on BER or jitter specifications, beyond the impact of lowering the average optical power at the receiver. The slow wavelength variations will not impact the system performance since the instantaneous linewidth appears fixed for any given large bit pattern, e.g., approximately 106 bits for OC-192.
It is possible to utilize the method of stabilization of
The use of unique dither frequency “identifying tags” for each laser source 12 also allows a single photodetector 351 and circuitry 360 to perform diagnostics on the transmitter TxPIC chip 10, such as insuring uniformity in power per channel. In the embodiment shown in
The concept of employing unique identifying tags for each laser source may also be extended to cover multiple TxPICs, such as, to the array of TxPIC chips 310 shown in
Thus, in partial summary of the embodiment shown in
A controller may monitor the change in power output at the dither frequency and employ a control loop to approach an operating point centered on the peak of the AWG passband. It should also be understood that dithering for purposes of monitoring can be performed relative to only one laser on the TxPIC 10 while the wavelength of the other on-chip lasers are initially locked to a standardized grid wavelength. In the case here, it is preferred that all of the laser sources have been characterized to substantially have the same wavelength shift response so that any determined wavelength change for the one monitoring laser may also be may made to the other on-chip lasers. Alternatively, more than one laser with different tone frequencies may be used for this purpose. Thus, every laser may be dithered and independently locked or just a few lasers, like two or more lasers, may be dithered and locked, or only one laser, sequentially one at a time on the TxPIC, is dithered and wavelength locked. In this latter mentioned alternative, one channel may be locked, and the other channels adjusted based on the offset in temperature/current required to lock the one laser. Alternatively, the locking may be cycled sequentially among lasers. If the array locking is cycled, an interpolation method may be used for some of the channels. It should be understood that in all of the foregoing cases, where one or more or all of lasers are locked to the peak of the AWG passband response, the laser wavelength may, as well, be locked to either side edge of the passband response rather than the peak.
Other embodiments for detection of a small portion of the AWG multiplexed signal output include an integrated optical detector on chip 10 for detecting the dithered output of AWG 50 using an integrated waveguide tap or other on-chip coupling means. Alternatively, a detector or photodiode may be directly coupled to the second slab waveguide region to receive a 2nd order output signal directly from output slab 54. In general, AWG 50 is designed to couple multiplexed signal channels into its 0th order Brillouin zone. Some power is always coupled to higher order Brillouin zones, e.g., 1st and 2nd order Brillouin zones. The light focused in slab 54 on the higher order Brillouin zones is a replica of the 0th order cone. As an illustrative example for an AWG with an output star coupler loss of approximately 1 dB, the total power in the 1st Brillouin zone is approximately 10 dB lower than the power in the 0th Brillouin zone. The power coupled to higher order Brillouin zones may be tapped for on-chip optical detection. An integrated optical detector, e.g., a PIN photodiode, may be located at the focal point of a higher order Brillouin zone as previously indicated. Alternatively, a waveguide may be placed at the focal point of a higher order Brillouin zone to couple the higher order Brillouin zone power to an optical detector, such as waveguide 234A to Brillouin zone 234 or waveguide 236A to Brillouin zone 236 and photodetector 235A or 235B.
The advantages of wavelength locking system 350 in
Alternatively relative to the embodiment shown in
Additional output waveguides and/or detectors may be placed off-center at the output edge of the slab waveguide region to receive light, for example, from a dummy channel formed on the TxPIC chip. Two photodetectors may be arranged adjacent to the passband center of the dummy channel wavelength. In this approach, a dummy laser, comprising the dummy channel, is coupled as an input to first slab 52 of AWG 50. AWG 50 may include two dummy channel output waveguides and corresponding dual photodiodes positioned to receive light at wavelengths, for example, λd+Δλ, and λd−Δλ, where λd is a dummy channel target wavelength and Δλ is a wavelength offset from the target dummy wavelength. When the dummy channel wavelength is tuned to its target wavelength, both optical detectors will have a desired ratio of power levels. The dummy laser may be tuned in wavelength until the power ratio is correctly set in the two spatially disposed photodiodes at λ0+Δλ and λ0−Δλ, where λ0 is center wavelength. When the power ratio is correctly set, the center wavelength λ0 is aligned to, for example, the passband center frequency of the AWG. The detector scheme of employing two discrete, spatial photodiodes is known in the art but the use, as explained herein, in connection with TxPIC chips disclosed in this application has not been previously disclosed as far as the applicants know.
In all of the foregoing AWG dithering embodiments, a single on-chip laser out of a plurality of such on-chip laser sources may include a dither tone for the purpose of wavelength locking of all of the other laser sources.
The passband response of the AWG will depend upon the refractive index of the AWG. For example, the refractive index of each AWG may be adjusted by temperature tuning, as previously explained. The passband response of the AWG may be characterized in the factory to set an operating temperature of the AWG for which the passband response of the AWG is aligned to the ITU wavelength channel grid, i.e., the peak transmissivity of the AWG is approximately aligned with the desired wavelength channels to achieve acceptable insertion loss level.
The output of TxPIC 10 may include an inline optical amplifier 326 to boost the multiplexed signal launched onto optical fiber link 328. Amplifier 326 may, for example, be an EDFA. The output of TxPIC chip 10 may also include variable optical attenuator (VOA) 327 to attenuate or otherwise extinguish any output signal on optical link 328 during the startup and calibration phase of chip 10 and feedback system 350 until a steady, stabilized operating state is reached. This calibration phase includes the checking and tuning of the individual wavelengths of DFB lasers 12 on chip 12 for their optimized operating wavelengths substantially matching the wavelength grid of AWG 50. When the calibration phase is complete, VOA 327 is turned off to permit the normal transmission of multiplexed channel signals on optical link 328. In this way, an optical receiver will not receive calibration data confusing to the operation of such an optical receiver. It should be carefully understood that VOA 327 is not the only component to perform such a shut-off function, as there are other optical components that could also perform this function, such as an optical switch or a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, to switch out any optical power during the calibration phase.
While the invention has been described in conjunction with several specific embodiments, it is evident to those skilled in the art that many further alternatives, modifications and variations will be apparent in light of the foregoing description. Thus, the invention described herein is intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications, applications and variations as may fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
This application is a divisional application of patent application Ser. No. 10/267,331, filed Oct. 8, 2002, and entitled, TRANSMITTER PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUITS (TxPICs) AND OPTICAL TRANSPORT NETWORK SYSTEM EMPLOYING TxPICs, which claims the benefit of priority to provisional patent applications of David F. Welch et al., Ser. No. 60/328,207, filed Oct. 9, 2001, and entitled, PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUITS FOR DWDM OPTICAL NETWORKS; Robert B. Taylor et al, Ser. No. 60/328,332, filed Oct. 9, 2001, and entitled, APPARATUS AND METHOD OF WAVELENGTH LOCKING IN AN OPTICAL TRANSMITTER SYSTEM; Fred A. Kish, Jr. et al, Ser. No. 60/370,345, filed Apr. 5, 2002, and entitled, TRANSMITTER PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUITS (TxPICs); Charles H. Joyner et al, Ser. No. 60/378,010, filed May 10, 2002, and entitled, TRANSMITTER PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUITS (TxPICs) CHIP WITH ENHANCED POWER AND YIELD WITHOUT ON-CHIP AMPLIFICATION; Jagdeep Singh et al, Ser. No. 60/392,494, filed Jun. 28, 2002, and entitled, DIGITAL OPTICAL NETWORK ARCHITECTURE; and David F. Welch et al, Ser. No. 60/367,595, filed Mar. 25, 2002, and entitled, AN OPTICAL SIGNAL RECEIVER PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUIT (RxPIC), AN ASSOCIATED OPTICAL TRANSMITTER PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUIT (TxPIC) AND AN OPTICAL NETWORK TRANSMISSION SYSTEM UTILIZING THESE CIRCUITS, all of which applications are incorporated herein in their entirety by their reference. This application is also related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/317,935, filed Dec. 11, 2002 and entitled, TRANSMITTER PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUIT (TxPIC) CHIPS, which application is incorporated herein in its entirety by its reference.
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