Athermal and tunable echelle grating wavelength demultiplexers using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer launch structure
Abstract
We present a comparative experimental study of three silicon photonic echelle grating demultiplexers that are integrated with a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) launch structure. By appropriate choice of the MZI configuration, the temperature induced shift of the demultiplexer channel wavelengths can be suppressed (athermal) or enhanced (super-thermal), or be controlled by an on-chip micro-heater. The latter two configurations allow the channel wavelengths to be actively tuned using lower power than possible by temperature tuning a conventional echelle demultiplexer. In the athermal configuration, the measured channel spectral shift is reduced to less than 10 pm/C, compared to the 83 pm/C shift for an unmodified echelle device. In super-thermal operation an enhanced channel temperature tuning rate of 170 pm/C is achieved. Finally, by modulating the MZI phase with an on-chip heater, the demultiplexer channels can be actively tuned to correct for ambient temperature fluctuations up to 20 C, using a drive current of less than 20 mA.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2201.02700,
title = {Athermal and tunable echelle grating wavelength demultiplexers using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer launch structure},
author = {Daniele Melati and Dan-Xia Xu and Ross Cheriton and Shurui Wang and Martin Vachon and Jens H. Schmid and Pavel Cheben and Siegfried Janz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.02700},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
16 pages, 8 figures