Abstract

In order to support continuous growth of global IP traffic, highly energy-efficient networks are demanded. One of the key components is an optical multicast switch which has large bandwidth with small power consumption. When using multicast switches, however, intrinsic losses will be an issue especially for large port count switches. Erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) are typically used for the loss compensation, although it would much increase the number of components and footprint of the system. One of the options to solve this problem would be an integration technology of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) on the silicon photonics switches which we have recently developed. In the previous work, we have demonstrated a gain-integrated 4 × 4 silicon matrix switch. For the practical use of our technology, it is very important to show further scalability of the platform. Moreover, it is also important to show applicability to other switch topologies, such as multicast switches. In this article, we demonstrate an 8 × 8 silicon photonics multicast switch with on-chip integrated 2 × 4-ch. SOAs. The on-chip SOAs exhibit a net gain of ∼9 dB, which almost compensates for the intrinsic loss. We observe the crosstalk of less than −35 dB. Loss/crosstalk reduction and chip power consumption are also discussed.

8 × 8 SOA-based optical switch with zero fiber-to-fiber insertion loss

Hassan Rahbardar Mojaver, Valery Tolstikhin, Bernardo Gargallo, Rocio Baños, David Domenech, Jessica Lo, Dhiraj Kumar, Kin-Wai Leong, and Odile Liboiron-Ladouceur
Opt. Lett. 45(16) 4650-4653 (2020)

Broadband silicon photonics 8 × 8 switch based on double-Mach–Zehnder element switches

Keijiro Suzuki, Ken Tanizawa, Satoshi Suda, Hiroyuki Matsuura, Takashi Inoue, Kazuhiro Ikeda, Shu Namiki, and Hitoshi Kawashima
Opt. Express 25(7) 7538-7546 (2017)

Micro-transfer printing InP C-band SOAs on advanced silicon photonics platform for lossless MZI switch fabrics and high-speed integrated transmitters

Jing Zhang, Laurens Bogaert, Clemens Krückel, Emadreza Soltanian, Hong Deng, Bahawal Haq, Johanna Rimböck, Joris Van Kerrebrouck, Guy Lepage, Peter Verheyen, Joris Van Campenhout, Peter Ossieur, Dries Van Thourhout, Geert Morthier, Wim Bogaerts, and Gunther Roelkens
Opt. Express 31(26) 42807-42821 (2023)

8-channel WDM silicon photonics transceiver with SOA and semiconductor mode-locked laser

Alvaro Moscoso-Mártir, Ali Tabatabaei-Mashayekh, Juliana Müller, Jovana Nojić, Rony Setter, Mad Nielsen, Anna Sandomirsky, Sylvie Rockman, Elad Mentovich, Florian Merget, Alexandre Garreau, François Lelarge, and Jeremy Witzens
Opt. Express 26(19) 25446-25459 (2018)

2 × 2 16-ch silicon photonics wavelength-selective switch based on waveguide gratings

Kazuhiro Ikeda, Ryotaro Konoike, Keijiro Suzuki, and Hitoshi Kawashima
Opt. Express 28(18) 26861-26869 (2020)