This disclosure relates to the field of optical chips, and in particular, to a wavelength measurement chip and a wavelength measurement system to which the wavelength measurement chip is applied.
A wavelength meter is a measurement tool commonly used in microwave measurement, and is configured to measure a wavelength or frequency of a microwave signal source (such as an electromagnetic wave).
A conventional wavelength meter is an independent instrument, including an optical path structure including a plurality of discrete components such as a lens, a curved mirror, an optical fiber, and a grating. In one aspect, the plurality of discrete components cause a large size and high space occupation of the conventional wavelength meter. In another aspect, the plurality of discrete components cause a low overall integrated level and poor apparatus reliability of the conventional wavelength meter.
One aspect of this disclosure provides a wavelength measurement chip, including:
The other one of the two electromagnetic wave signals is output as a third electromagnetic wave signal, and the second electromagnetic wave signal and the third electromagnetic wave signal may be used to obtain wavelength information of the first electromagnetic wave signal through optical-electrical conversion.
The wavelength measurement chip includes a substrate, and the optical splitter, the first interferometer, and the second interferometer that are disposed on the substrate. The wavelength measurement chip is configured to receive the first electromagnetic wave signal, output the plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals and the third electromagnetic wave signal based on the first electromagnetic wave signal, convert the second electromagnetic wave signal and the third electromagnetic wave signal into electrical signals, and obtain wavelength information of the first electromagnetic wave signal based on the electrical signals. The wavelength measurement chip does not need to establish a complex optical system. Compared with a wavelength meter in the conventional technology, the wavelength measurement chip has a simpler structure, which helps reduce a size and occupied space. In addition, components in the wavelength measurement chip have a compact structure, which further helps improve reliability of the wavelength measurement chip.
In some embodiments, the wavelength measurement chip defines a first path and a second path, the two electromagnetic wave signals are respectively transmitted in the first path and the second path, and a loss of the electromagnetic wave propagated in the first path is greater than a loss of the electromagnetic wave propagated in the second path.
The optical splitter divides the first electromagnetic wave signal into the two electromagnetic wave signals according to a preset proportion for output. A proportion of the electromagnetic wave signal propagated in the first path in the first electromagnetic wave is greater than a proportion of the electromagnetic wave signal propagated in the second path in the first electromagnetic wave.
A specific value of the preset proportion is determined based on optical losses of the first path and the second path. Compared with propagation of the electromagnetic wave in the second path, propagation of the electromagnetic wave in the first path has a higher strength loss. Therefore, in this embodiment, a strength proportion of the electromagnetic wave signal output by the optical splitter to the first path in the first electromagnetic wave is set to be higher than that of the electromagnetic wave signal output to the second path in the first electromagnetic wave, to balance a difference between the strength loss of the electromagnetic wave signal in the first path and the strength loss of the electromagnetic wave signal in the second path.
In some embodiments, the first path includes the first interferometer and the second interferometer.
The first path includes the first interferometer and the second interferometer. When being propagated in the first path, the electromagnetic wave signal needs to pass through more components than those through which the electromagnetic wave signal passes when being propagated in the second path. Therefore, compared with propagation of the electromagnetic wave in the first path, propagation of the electromagnetic wave in the second path has a higher strength loss. A strength proportion of the electromagnetic wave signal output by the optical splitter to the first path in the first electromagnetic wave is set to be higher than that of the electromagnetic wave signal output to the second path in the first electromagnetic wave, to balance a difference between the strength loss of the electromagnetic wave signal in the first path and the strength loss of the electromagnetic wave signal in the second path.
In some embodiments, the first interferometer is a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, and the second interferometer is a multimode interferometer.
In some embodiments, there is a preset phase shift between the plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals output by the second interferometer, and the preset phase shift between the plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals can be adjusted by adjusting a quantity of the second electromagnetic waves output by the second interferometer.
The preset phase shift between the plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals can be adjusted by adjusting the quantity of the second electromagnetic waves output by the second interferometer, and a larger quantity of the second electromagnetic waves indicates more accurate wavelength measurement.
In some embodiments, the second interferometer outputs four second electromagnetic wave signals, and a preset phase shift between the four electromagnetic wave signals is π/2.
In some embodiments, a coupler is further included, and the coupler is configured to receive the first electromagnetic wave and transmit the first electromagnetic wave to the optical splitter.
A manner in which the coupler is disposed to receive the first electromagnetic wave signal and transmit the first electromagnetic wave signal to the optical splitter is more conducive to reducing an input loss of the first electromagnetic wave signal, thereby improving accuracy of the wavelength information measured by the wavelength measurement chip.
In some embodiments, a high-order mode filter is further included, and the high-order mode filter is coupled between the optical splitter and the first interferometer.
The high-order mode filter can reduce a high-order mode of the electromagnetic wave transmitted in the first path. Disposing the high-order mode filter helps increase an extinction ratio of the interferometer in the first path, thereby further improving accuracy of the wavelength information measured by the wavelength measurement chip.
In some embodiments, the optical splitter, the first interferometer, and the second interferometer form the substrate.
Another aspect of this disclosure provides a wavelength measurement system, including:
The wavelength measurement system provided in this embodiment of this disclosure includes the wavelength measurement chip. The wavelength measurement chip includes a substrate, and an optical splitter, a first interferometer, and a second interferometer that are disposed on the substrate. The wavelength measurement chip is configured to receive the first electromagnetic wave signal, and output a plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals and a third electromagnetic wave signal based on the first electromagnetic wave signal. The wavelength measurement system further includes the photoelectric detector and the processor that are electrically connected to each other, the second electromagnetic wave signal and the third electromagnetic wave signal are converted into the electrical signals by the photoelectric detector, and the wavelength information of the first electromagnetic wave signal is obtained by the processor based on the electrical signals. The wavelength measurement system does not need to establish a complex optical system. Compared with a wavelength meter in the conventional technology, the wavelength measurement system has a simpler structure, which helps reduce a size and occupied space. In addition, components in the wavelength measurement chip 11 have a compact structure, which further helps improve reliability of the wavelength measurement system.
In some embodiments, the processor is configured to obtain a plurality of wavelength values based on the plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals output by the second interferometer, and determine, from the plurality of wavelength values based on the third electromagnetic wave signal output by the optical splitter, a wavelength value as a wavelength value of the first electromagnetic wave signal.
A spectral image is regularly and periodically arranged, a determined signal strength may correspond to a plurality of wavelength values, and a wavelength value can be uniquely determined based on the third electromagnetic wave signal output by the optical splitter.
In some embodiments, the photoelectric detector has a sensing zone, the wavelength measurement chip has a coupling plane for outputting the second electromagnetic wave signal and the third electromagnetic wave signal, and the coupling plane is parallel to a plane on which the sensing zone is located.
In this way, transmission directions of the second electromagnetic wave signal and the third electromagnetic wave signal are perpendicular to the coupling plane, that is, perpendicular to a sensing zone. In this case, the second electromagnetic wave signal and the third electromagnetic wave signal can directly enter the photoelectric detector after being output from the coupling plane, and the transmission directions of the second electromagnetic wave signal and the third electromagnetic wave signal do not need to be specifically changed.
In some embodiments, the photoelectric detector has a sensing zone, and a plane on which the sensing zone is located is parallel to a plane on which the second electromagnetic wave and the third electromagnetic wave signal are propagated on the wavelength measurement chip.
In this way, the wavelength measurement chip, the photoelectric detector, and the processor are sequentially stacked, and there is no protrusion structure perpendicular to a direction of the wavelength measurement chip. This helps simplify a subsequent packaging process.
The following describes embodiments of this disclosure with reference to the accompanying drawings in embodiments of this disclosure.
As shown in
As shown in
The wavelength measurement system 10 includes a wavelength measurement chip 11, a plurality of photoelectric detectors 12, and a processor 13. The photoelectric detector 12 is coupled to the wavelength measurement chip 11, and is electrically connected to the processor 13. The wavelength measurement chip 11 is configured to receive a first electromagnetic wave signal, and output a plurality of (in this disclosure, “a plurality of” means two or more) second electromagnetic wave signals and a third electromagnetic wave signal based on the first electromagnetic wave signal. The photoelectric detector 12 is configured to receive the plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals and the third electromagnetic wave signal, and generate electrical signals based on the plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals and the third electromagnetic wave signal. The processor 13 is configured to obtain wavelength information of the first electromagnetic wave signal based on the electrical signals.
The wavelength measurement chip 11 is a wavelength measurement chip based on a planar optical waveguide. As shown in
According to different propagation paths of the first electromagnetic wave signal, the wavelength measurement chip 11 defines a first path and a second path. In this embodiment, the first path includes the first interferometer 113 and the second interferometer 114. The first path further includes a waveguide structure (not shown in
The optical splitter 112 is a Y-shaped optical splitter, and is configured to receive the first electromagnetic wave signal, and divide the first electromagnetic wave signal into two electromagnetic wave signals for output. One electromagnetic wave signal is guided to the first path, and the other electromagnetic wave signal is guided to the second path.
The optical splitter 112 performs dividing according to a preset proportion to obtain the two electromagnetic wave signals. In other words, strengths of the two electromagnetic wave signals are in a preset proportion. For example, a ratio of a strength of the electromagnetic wave signal output by the optical splitter 112 to the first path to a strength of the electromagnetic wave signal output by the optical splitter 112 to the second path is equal to 9:1 or 5:5. A specific preset proportion is not limited in this disclosure.
A specific value of the preset proportion is determined based on optical losses of the first path and the second path. In this embodiment, the first path includes the first interferometer 113, the second interferometer 114, and a waveguide structure 115, and the second path includes only a waveguide structure 116. Therefore, when being propagated in the first path, the electromagnetic wave signal needs to pass through more components than those through which the electromagnetic wave signal passes when being propagated in the second path, and compared with propagation of the electromagnetic wave in the first path, propagation of the electromagnetic wave in the second path has a higher strength loss. Therefore, in this embodiment, the strength of the electromagnetic wave signal output by the optical splitter 112 to the first path is set to be greater than the strength of the electromagnetic wave signal output to the second path, that is, a strength proportion of the electromagnetic wave signal output by the optical splitter 112 to the first path in the first electromagnetic wave is set to be greater than the strength proportion of the electromagnetic wave signal output to the second path in the first electromagnetic wave, to balance a difference between the strength loss of the electromagnetic wave signal in the first path and the strength loss of the electromagnetic wave signal in the second path.
The electromagnetic wave signal output to the first path is sequentially guided by the waveguide structure 115 to the first interferometer 113 and the second interferometer 114. In an embodiment, the first interferometer 113 is a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (Mach-Zehnder interferometer, MZI). The first interferometer 113 is configured to receive the electromagnetic wave signal and cause interference to the electromagnetic wave signal, to output two electromagnetic wave signals based on the electromagnetic wave signal. Spectra of the two electromagnetic wave signals output by the first interferometer 113 are shown in
Still as shown in
In another embodiment, a quantity of input signals of the second interferometer 114 may not be two, and a quantity of output signals of the second interferometer 114 may not be four. For example, in one embodiment, the second interferometer 114 may have four inputs and six outputs, in another embodiment, the second interferometer 114 has two inputs and two outputs, and in still another embodiment, the second interferometer 114 has four inputs and four outputs.
There is a preset phase shift between the plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals output by the second interferometer 114. To be specific, the plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals output by the second interferometer 114 are sequentially numbered 1, 2, 3, . . . , and there is a preset phase shift between every two second electromagnetic wave signals whose numbers are adjacent (for example, a number 1 is adjacent to a number 2, and the number 2 is adjacent to a number 3). In addition, in this embodiment, the preset phase shifts between every two second electromagnetic wave signals whose numbers are adjacent are the same.
In this embodiment, the second interferometer 114 outputs four second electromagnetic wave signals, and there is a preset phase shift of π/2 between the four second electromagnetic wave signals in sequence. When the second interferometer 114 has two outputs, there is a preset phase shift of π between the two second electromagnetic wave signals. When the second interferometer 114 has six outputs, there is a preset phase shift of π/3 between the six second electromagnetic wave signals in sequence. To be specific, in the second electromagnetic wave signals output by the second interferometer 114, a maximum phase shift is 2π. Therefore, the preset phase shift between the second electromagnetic wave signals may be adjusted by adjusting a quantity of the second electromagnetic wave signals output by the second interferometer 114. When the maximum phase shift between the plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals output by the second interferometer 114 is fixed, a larger quantity of the second electromagnetic wave signals output by the second interferometer 114 indicates a smaller preset phase shift between two adjacent second electromagnetic wave signals.
The second interferometer 114 outputs at least two second electromagnetic wave signals. A larger quantity of second electromagnetic wave signals output by the second interferometer 114 indicates more accurate wavelength information of the first electromagnetic wave signal measured by the wavelength measurement system 10.
In this embodiment, the four second electromagnetic wave signals may be transmitted to the photoelectric detector 12. The electromagnetic wave signal of the second path is propagated by using the waveguide structure 116, and is transmitted to the photoelectric detector 12 as a third electromagnetic wave signal. The photoelectric detector 12 is configured to separately convert the received second electromagnetic wave signals and third electromagnetic wave signal into electrical signals through photoelectric conversion.
As shown in
An end face (namely, an end face for outputting the second electromagnetic wave signal and the third electromagnetic wave signal) that is on the wavelength measurement chip 11 and that is coupled to the plurality of photoelectric detectors 12 is defined as a coupling plane S1. Each photoelectric detector 12 has a sensing zone S2. The sensing zone S2 is a zone that is on the photoelectric detector 12 and that can effectively receive an electromagnetic wave signal for photoelectric conversion. To effectively use area of the sensing zone S2, a zone in which the coupling plane S1 outputs the second electromagnetic wave signal and the third electromagnetic wave signal needs to be aligned with the sensing zone S2 as much as possible.
In this embodiment, on the basis of meeting the foregoing alignment requirement, a coupling manner between the photoelectric detector 12 and the wavelength measurement chip 11 is further set to adjust difficulty of packaging of the wavelength measurement chip 11.
Still as shown in
Compared with the position relationships between the coupling plane S1 and the photoelectric detector 12 shown in
In the structures shown in
For ease of packaging, in the structure shown in
In this embodiment, the four second electromagnetic wave signals output by the second interferometer 114 may form a spectral image shown in
As shown in
In this embodiment, a wavelength value is uniquely determined based on the third electromagnetic wave signal output from the second path. A strength of the third electromagnetic wave signal output from the second path is inversely proportional to a wavelength of the third electromagnetic wave signal, and there is a unique correspondence between the strength and a value of the wavelength. At a moment, when the photoelectric detector 12 obtains a signal strength, the processor 13 can obtain a plurality of wavelength values based on spectra shown in
As shown in
The wavelength measurement chip 11 further includes a coupler 117 disposed on the substrate 111. The coupler 117 is a spotsize converter grating (SSC grating). The coupler 117 is coupled to the optical splitter 112 by using a waveguide structure. The coupler 117 is disposed close to an end face on which the wavelength measurement chip 11 receives the first electromagnetic wave signal, and is configured to couple the first electromagnetic wave signal to the optical splitter 112. Compared with a manner in which the optical splitter 112 directly receives the first electromagnetic wave signal, the manner in which the coupler 117 receives the first electromagnetic wave signal and transmits the first electromagnetic wave signal to the optical splitter 112 is more conducive to reducing an input loss of the first electromagnetic wave signal, thereby improving accuracy of the wavelength information measured by the wavelength measurement chip 11.
The wavelength measurement chip 11 in this embodiment further includes a high-order mode filter 118 disposed on the substrate 111. The high-order mode filter 118 is coupled between the optical splitter 112 and the first interferometer 113, and is configured to reduce a high-order mode of an electromagnetic wave transmitted in the first path. Disposing the high-order mode filter 118 helps increase an extinction ratio of the interferometers (namely, the first interferometer 113 and the second interferometer 114) in the first path, thereby further improving the accuracy of the wavelength information measured by the wavelength measurement chip 11.
The wavelength measurement system 10 provided in this embodiment of this disclosure includes the wavelength measurement chip 11. The wavelength measurement chip 11 includes the substrate 111, and the optical splitter 112, the first interferometer 113, and the second interferometer 114 that are disposed on the substrate 111. The wavelength measurement chip 11 is configured to receive the first electromagnetic wave signal, and output the plurality of second electromagnetic wave signals and the third electromagnetic wave signal based on the first electromagnetic wave signal. The wavelength measurement system 10 further includes the photoelectric detector 12 and the processor 13 that are electrically connected to each other, the second electromagnetic wave signal and the third electromagnetic wave signal are converted into the electrical signals by the photoelectric detector 12, and the wavelength information of the first electromagnetic wave signal is obtained by the processor 13 based on the electrical signals. The wavelength measurement chip 11 does not need to establish a complex optical system. Compared with a wavelength meter in the conventional technology, the wavelength measurement system has a simpler structure, which helps reduce a size and occupied space. In addition, components in the wavelength measurement chip 11 have a compact structure, which further helps improve reliability of the wavelength measurement chip 11 and the wavelength measurement system 10.
A person of ordinary skill in the art should be aware that the foregoing implementations are merely used to describe the present invention, but are not intended to limit the present invention. Appropriate modifications and variations made to the foregoing embodiments shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention as long as they fall within the substantive scope of the present invention.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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202011603792.3 | Dec 2020 | CN | national |
This disclosure is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/CN2021/134467, filed on Nov. 30, 2021, which claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 202011603792.3, filed on Dec. 30, 2020. The disclosures of the aforementioned applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | PCT/CN2021/134467 | Nov 2021 | US |
Child | 18344303 | US |