Abstract

The fast growth of data traffic in short-reach optical communications drives the demand for high-speed and low-cost optical modules. Here we demonstrate a silicon photonic (SiP) phase-diverse receiver based on our recently proposed asymmetric self-coherent detection (ASCD) scheme with Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZI). The SiP MZI-ASCD receiver has a hardware-efficient architecture and recovers complex double-sideband signals via the beatings between a signal portion and a delayed signal portion from an asymmetric MZI using only 2 single-ended photodiodes and 2 analog-to-digital converters. The removal of the local oscillator in the direct detection receiver enables low-cost uncooled lasers, whereas the phase diversity closes the gap with coherent detection in terms of electrical spectral efficiency (ESE). Using a SiP MZI-ASCD receiver with a 15 ps delay, we detect a 60 Gbaud single-polarization 16-QAM signal transmitted over 40 km of single-mode fiber (SMF) below 20% overhead (OH) SD-FEC threshold of 2 × 10⁻² with a net bit rate of 200 Gbps and a record net ESE of 5.86 b/s/Hz per wavelength per polarization. Using a SiP MZI-ASCD receiver with a different delay of 7.5 ps, transmission of single-polarization 16-QAM DSB signal up to 80 Gbaud over 40 km is achieved below 24% OH SD-FEC threshold of 4.5 × 10⁻² with a record net bit rate of 258 Gbps and a net ESE of 5.31 b/s/Hz per wavelength per polarization.

Modified SiP single-polarization CADD receiver

Jingchi Li, Zhen Wang, Xingfeng Li, William Shieh, and Yikai Su
Opt. Lett. 49(5) 1133-1136 (2024)

Asymmetric self-coherent detection

Xueyang Li, Maurice O’Sullivan, Zhenping Xing, Md Samiul Alam, Mohammad E. Mousa-Pasandi, and David V. Plant
Opt. Express 29(16) 25412-25427 (2021)

Maximizing the spectral efficiency of Stokes vector receiver with optical field recovery

Di Che, Chuanbowen Sun, and William Shieh
Opt. Express 26(22) 28976-28981 (2018)

Four-dimensional direct detection receiver enabling Jones-space field recovery with phase and polarization diversity

Qi Wu, Yixiao Zhu, Xueyang Li, Hexun Jiang, Chen Cheng, Mengfan Fu, Yikun Zhang, Qunbi Zhuge, Zhaohui Li, and Weisheng Hu
Photon. Res. 12(3) 399-410 (2024)

100G and 200G single carrier transmission over 2880 and 320 km using an InP IQ modulator and Stokes vector receiver

Mohammed Y. S. Sowailem, Thang M. Hoang, Mathieu Chagnon, Mohamed Morsy-Osman, Meng Qiu, Stephane Paquet, Carl Paquet, Ian Woods, Odile Liboiron-Ladouceur, and David V. Plant
Opt. Express 24(26) 30485-30493 (2016)