A Silicon Photonic 32-Input Coherent Combiner for Turbulence Mitigation in Free Space Optics Links
Abstract
A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) for the coherent combination of 32 input optical signals into a single output fiber is reported. The PIC was fabricated using a low-loss thick silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process and packaged with 32 input and 1 output fibers. The basic building block is a 2x2 Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with an external (to the MZI branches) and an internal thermal phase shifter, and a bandwidth in excess of 80 kHz. The PIC monolithically integrates 31 MZIs and 31 germanium photodetectors, and is suitable in principle for turbulence mitigation in LEO-ground and horizontal free space optics links. Improvements to the device for the coherent combination of 64 inputs and for the reduction of insertion losses are also discussed
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2406.02076,
title = {A Silicon Photonic 32-Input Coherent Combiner for Turbulence Mitigation in Free Space Optics Links},
author = {Lorenzo De Marinis and Peter Seigo Kincaid and Yann Lucas and Lea Krafft and Vincent Michau and Matteo Cherchi and Mikko Karppinen and Giampiero Contestabile},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.02076},
year = {2024}
}