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Three-Photon Optical Pumping for Trapped Ion Quantum Computing

Hogle, Craig W.; Ivory, Megan K.; Lobser, Daniel L.; Ruzic, Brandon R.; DeRose, Christopher T.

In this report we describe the testing of a novel scheme for state preparation of trapped ions in a quantum computing setup. This technique optimally would allow for similar precision and speed of state preparation while allowing for individual addressability of single ions in a chain using technology already available in a trapped ion experiment. As quantum computing experiments become more complicated, mid-experiment measurements will become necessary to achieve algorithms such as quantum error correction. Any mid-experiment measurement then requires the measured qubit to be re-prepared to a known quantum state. Currently this involves the protected qubits to be moved a sizeable distance away from the qubit being re-prepared which can be costly in terms of experiment length as well as introducing errors. Theoretical calculations predict that a three-photon process would allow for state preparation without qubit movement with similar efficiencies to current state preparation methods.

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Characterization of suspended membrane waveguides towards a photonic atom trap integrated platform

Optics Express

Gehl, M.; Kindel, William K.; Karl, Nicholas J.; Orozco, Adrian S.; Musick, Katherine M.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Dallo, Christina M.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Leenheer, Andrew J.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Biedermann, Grant; Jau, Yuan-Yu J.; Lee, Jongmin L.

We demonstrate an optical waveguide device, capable of supporting the high, invacuum, optical power necessary for trapping a single atom or a cold atom ensemble with evanescent fields. Our photonic integrated platform, with suspended membrane waveguides, successfully manages optical powers of 6 mW (500 μm span) to nearly 30 mW (125 μm span) over an un-tethered waveguide span. This platform is compatible with laser cooling and magnetooptical traps (MOTs) in the vicinity of the suspended waveguide, called the membrane MOT and the needle MOT, a key ingredient for efficient trap loading. We evaluate two novel designs that explore critical thermal management features that enable this large power handling. This work represents a significant step toward an integrated platform for coupling neutral atom quantum systems to photonic and electronic integrated circuits on silicon.

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Gamma radiation effects on passive silicon photonic waveguides using phase sensitive methods

Optics Express

Boynton, Nicholas; Gehl, M.; Dallo, Christina M.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Hood, Dana; Dodd, Paul E.; Swanson, Scot; Trotter, Douglas; DeRose, Christopher T.; Lentine, Anthony L.

Passive silicon photonic waveguides are exposed to gamma radiation to understand how the performance of silicon photonic integrated circuits is affected in harsh environments such as space or high energy physics experiments. The propagation loss and group index of the mode guided by these waveguides is characterized by implementing a phase sensitive swept-wavelength interferometric method. We find that the propagation loss associated with each waveguide geometry explored in this study slightly increases at absorbed doses of up to 100 krad (Si). The measured change in group index associated with the same waveguide geometries is negligibly changed after exposure. Additionally, we show that the post-exposure degradation of these waveguides can be improved through heat treatment.

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A Stable Ultrahigh Extinction Silicon Photonic Amplitude Modulator

2018 7th Annual IEEE Photonics Society Optical Interconnects Conference, OI 2018

Cai, Hong; Liu, Sheng; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Dallo, Christina M.; Hood, Dana H.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Lentine, Anthony L.

We demonstrate the ultrahigh extinction operation of a silicon photonic (SiP) amplitude modulator (AM) employing a cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer. By carrying out optimization sweeps without significantly degrading the extinction, the SiP AM is robust to environment changes and maintained >52 dB extinction for >6 hrs.

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Accurate photonic waveguide characterization using an arrayed waveguide structure

Optics Express

Gehl, M.; Boynton, Nicholas; Dallo, Christina M.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Hood, Dana H.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Lentine, Anthony L.; DeRose, Christopher T.

Measurement uncertainties in the techniques used to characterize loss in photonic waveguides becomes a significant issue as waveguide loss is reduced through improved fabrication technology. Typical loss measurement techniques involve environmentally unknown parameters such as facet reflectivity or varying coupling efficiencies, which directly contribute to the uncertainty of the measurement. We present a loss measurement technique, which takes advantage of the differential loss between multiple paths in an arrayed waveguide structure, in which we are able to gather statistics on propagation loss from several waveguides in a single measurement. This arrayed waveguide structure is characterized using a swept-wavelength interferometer, enabling the analysis of the arrayed waveguide transmission as a function of group delay between waveguides. Loss extraction is only dependent on the differential path length between arrayed waveguides and is therefore extracted independently from on and off-chip coupling efficiencies, which proves to be an accurate and reliable method of loss characterization. This method is applied to characterize the loss of the silicon photonic platform at Sandia Labs with an uncertainty of less than 0.06 dB/cm.

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Photonic design parameters for AWG-based RF channelized receivers

Optics InfoBase Conference Papers

Davis, Kyle; Stark, Andrew; Yang, Benjamin; Lentine, Anthony L.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Gehl, M.

An 11-channel 1-GHz bandwidth silicon photonic AWG was fabricated and measured in the lab. Two photonic architectures are presented: (1) RF-envelope detector, and (2) RF downconvertor for digital systems. The RF-envelope detector architecture was modeled based on the demonstrated AWG characteristics to determine estimated system-level RF receiver performance.

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Characterization of systematic process variation in a silicon photonic platform

6th IEEE Photonics Society Optical Interconnects Conference, OI 2017

Boynton, Nicholas; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Lentine, Anthony L.; DeRose, Christopher T.

We present a quantitative analysis of the correlation of resonant wavelength variation with process variables, and find that 50% of the resonant wavelength variation for microrings is due to systematic process conditions. We also discuss the improvement of device uniformity by mitigating these systematic variations.

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Substrate removal for ultra efficient silicon heater-modulators

6th IEEE Photonics Society Optical Interconnects Conference, OI 2017

Martinez, Nicolas J.D.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Jarecki, Robert L.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Lentine, Anthony L.

We present our experimental results of ultra efficient (up to 2.16 nm/mW) thermally tunable modulators with n-Type heaters and the Si substrate removed. To our knowledge, this is the most efficient thermally tunable modulator demonstrated at 1550nm to date. We include results of externally heated modulators with commensurate performance enhancements through substrate removal.

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Silicon photonic transceiver circuit for highspeed polarization-based discrete variable quantum key distribution

Optics Express

Cai, Hong; Long, Christopher M.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Boynton, Nicholas; Urayama, Junji U.; Camacho, Ryan C.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Davids, Paul D.; Lentine, Anthony L.

We demonstrate a silicon photonic transceiver circuit for high-speed discrete variable quantum key distribution that employs a common structure for transmit and receive functions. The device is intended for use in polarization-based quantum cryptographic protocols, such as BB84. Our characterization indicates that the circuit can generate the four BB84 states (TE/TM/45°/135° linear polarizations) with >30 dB polarization extinction ratios and gigabit per second modulation speed, and is capable of decoding any polarization bases differing by 90° with high extinction ratios.

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Demonstration of a silicon photonic transceiver for polarization-based discrete variable quantum key distribution

Optics InfoBase Conference Papers

Cai, Hong; Long, Christopher M.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Boynton, Nicholas; Urayama, Junji U.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Davids, Paul D.; Lentine, Anthony L.

We demonstrate a silicon photonic transceiver circuit to implement polarization encoding/decoding for DV-QKD. The circuit is capable of encoding BB84 states with >30 dB PER and decoding with >20 dB ER.

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Ultrahigh extinction on-chip amplitude modulators with broadband operation

Optics InfoBase Conference Papers

Liu, Sheng L.; Cai, Hong; DeRose, Christopher T.; Davids, Paul D.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Urayama, Junji U.; Camacho, Ryan C.; Lentine, Anthony L.

We experimentally demonstrate amplitude modulators (AMs) with >65 dB extinction across over a 160 nm spectral range. The output optical phase response is also characterized when the amplitude is modulated.

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Radio frequency silicon photonics at Sandia National Laboratories

2016 IEEE Avionics and Vehicle Fiber-Optics and Photonics Conference, AVFOP 2016

DeRose, Christopher T.; Gehl, M.; Long, C.; Boynton, N.; Martinez, N.; Pomerene, A.; Starbuck, A.; Dallo, C.; Hood, D.; Trotter, E.D.; Davids, P.; Lentine, A.

Sandia National Laboratories has developed a toolkit of RF photonic devices. These devices have been used in the development of multielement RF photonic circuits and in support of MPW runs. In this talk I will discuss Sandia's silicon photonic process and RF photonic device performance.

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Compact silicon photonic resonance-sssisted variable optical attenuator

Optics Express

Wang, Xiaoxi; Aguinaldo, Ryan; Lentine, Anthony L.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Mookherjea, Shayan

A two-part silicon photonic variable optical attenuator is demonstrated in a compact footprint which can provide a high extinction ratio at wavelengths between 1520 nm and 1620 nm. The device was made by following the conventional p-i-n waveguide section by a high-extinction-ratio second-order microring filter section. The rings provide additional on-off contrast by utilizing a thermal resonance shift, which harvested the heat dissipated by current injection in the p-i-n junction. We derive and discuss a simple thermal-resistance model in explanation of these effects.

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Challenges for optical interconnect for beyond Moore's law computing

2016 IEEE International Conference on Rebooting Computing, ICRC 2016 - Conference Proceedings

Lentine, Anthony L.; DeRose, Christopher T.

We describe the challenge of implementing optical interconnect for beyond Moore's electronic devices. In particular, we developed a simple link model and calculated the optical communications energy for logic voltages down to 10 mV. The results of this link model show a limit to the minimum communications energy that depends on the achievable extinction ratio of the devices. This work gives some insight into the tact that should be taken for improved optical devices to have an impact in future computing systems using ultra-low voltage transistor devices.

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Wide-range and fast thermally-tunable silicon photonic microring resonators using the junction field effect

Optics Express

Wang, Xiaoxi; Lentine, Anthony L.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Mookherjea, Shayan

Tunable silicon microring resonators with small, integrated micro-heaters which exhibit a junction field effect were made using a conventional silicon-on-insulator (SOI) photonic foundry fabrication process. The design of the resistive tuning section in the microrings included a "pinched" p-n junction, which limited the current at higher voltages and inhibited damage even when driven by a pre-emphasized voltage waveform. Dual-ring filters were studied for both large (>4.9 THz) and small (850 GHz) free-spectral ranges. Thermal red-shifting was demonstrated with microsecond-scale time constants, e.g., a dual-ring filter was tuned over 25 nm in 0.6 μs 10%-90% transition time, and with efficiency of 3.2 μW/GHz.

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High performance waveguide-coupled Ge-on-Si linear mode avalanche photodiodes

Optics Express

Martinez, Nicolas J.D.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Brock, Reinhard W.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Lentine, Anthony L.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Davids, Paul D.

We present experimental results for a selective epitaxially grown Ge-on-Si separate absorption and charge multiplication (SACM) integrated waveguide coupled avalanche photodiode (APD) compatible with our silicon photonics platform. Epitaxially grown Ge-on-Si waveguide-coupled linear mode avalanche photodiodes with varying lateral multiplication regions and different charge implant dimensions are fabricated and their illuminated device characteristics and high-speed performance is measured. We report a record gain-bandwidth product of 432 GHz for our highest performing waveguide-coupled avalanche photodiode operating at 1510nm. Bit error rate measurements show operation with BER< 10-12, in the range from -18.3 dBm to -12 dBm received optical power into a 50 Ω load and open eye diagrams with 13 Gbps pseudo-random data at 1550 nm.

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An adiabatic/diabatic polarization beam splitter

5th IEEE Photonics Society Optical Interconnects Conference, OI 2016

Cai, Hong; Boynton, Nicholas; Lentine, Anthony L.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Davids, Paul D.; DeRose, Christopher T.

We demonstrate an on-chip polarization beam splitter (PBS), which is adiabatic for the transverse magnetic mode, and diabatic for the transverse electric mode. The PBS has a simple structure that is tolerant to manufacturing variations and exhibits high polarization extinction ratios over a wide bandwidth.

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Lightwave Circuits in Lithium Niobate through Hybrid Waveguides with Silicon Photonics

Scientific Reports

Weigel, Peter O.; Savanier, Marc; DeRose, Christopher T.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Lentine, Anthony L.; Stenger, Vincent; Mookherjea, Shayan

We demonstrate a photonic waveguide technology based on a two-material core, in which light is controllably and repeatedly transferred back and forth between sub-micron thickness crystalline layers of Si and LN bonded to one another, where the former is patterned and the latter is not. In this way, the foundry-based wafer-scale fabrication technology for silicon photonics can be leveraged to form lithium-niobate based integrated optical devices. Using two different guided modes and an adiabatic mode transition between them, we demonstrate a set of building blocks such as waveguides, bends, and couplers which can be used to route light underneath an unpatterned slab of LN, as well as outside the LN-bonded region, thus enabling complex and compact lightwave circuits in LN alongside Si photonics with fabrication ease and low cost.

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Challenges in the implementation of dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) optical interconnects using resonant silicon photonics

Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering

Lentine, Anthony L.; DeRose, Christopher T.

Small silicon photonics micro-resonator modulators and filters hold the promise for multi-terabit per-second interconnects at energy consumptions well below 1 pJ/bit. To date, no products exist and little known commercial development is occurring using this technology. Why? In this talk, we review the many challenges that remain to be overcome in bringing this technology from the research labs to the field where they can overcome important commercial, industrial, and national security limitations of existing photonic technologies.

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Racetrack resonator as a loss measurement platform for photonic components

Optics Express

Jones, Adam J.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Lentine, Anthony L.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Norwood, Robert A.

This work represents the first complete analysis of the use of a racetrack resonator to measure the insertion loss of efficient, compact photonic components. Beginning with an in-depth analysis of potential error sources and a discussion of the calibration procedure, the technique is used to estimate the insertion loss of waveguide width tapers of varying geometry with a resulting 95% confidence interval of 0.007 dB. The work concludes with a performance comparison of the analyzed tapers with results presented for four taper profiles and three taper lengths.

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Precision Laser Annealing of Focal Plane Arrays

Bender, Daniel A.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Verley, Jason V.; Jenkins, Mark W.

We present results from laser annealing experiments in Si using a passively Q-switched Nd:YAG microlaser. Exposure with laser at fluence values above the damage threshold of commercially available photodiodes results in electrical damage (as measured by an increase in photodiode dark current). We show that increasing the laser fluence to values in excess of the damage threshold can result in annealing of a damage site and a reduction in detector dark current by as much as 100x in some cases. A still further increase in fluence results in irreparable damage. Thus we demonstrate the presence of a laser annealing window over which performance of damaged detectors can be at least partially reconstituted. Moreover dark current reduction is observed over the entire operating range of the diode indicating that device performance has been improved for all values of reverse bias voltage. Additionally, we will present results of laser annealing in Si waveguides. By exposing a small (<10 um) length of a Si waveguide to an annealing laser pulse, the longitudinal phase of light acquired in propagating through the waveguide can be modified with high precision, <15 milliradian per laser pulse. Phase tuning by 180 degrees is exhibited with multiple exposures to one arm of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer at fluence values below the morphological damage threshold of an etched Si waveguide. No reduction in optical transmission at 1550 nm was found after 220 annealing laser shots. Modeling results for laser annealing in Si are also presented.

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Silicon photonics platform for national security applications

IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings

Lentine, Anthony L.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Davids, Paul D.; Martinez, Nicolas J.D.; Zortman, William A.; Cox, Jonathan A.; Jones, Adam; Trotter, Douglas C.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Savignon, Daniel J.; Bauer, Todd B.; Wiwi, Michael W.; Chu, Patrick B.

We review Sandia's silicon photonics platform for national security applications. Silicon photonics offers the potential for extensive size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-c) reductions compared to existing III-V or purely electronics circuits. Unlike most silicon photonics foundries in the US and internationally, our silicon photonics is manufactured in a trusted environment at our Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Application (MESA) facility. The Sandia fabrication facility is certified as a trusted foundry and can therefore produce devices and circuits intended for military applications. We will describe a variety of silicon photonics devices and subsystems, including both monolithic and heterogeneous integration of silicon photonics with electronics, that can enable future complex functionality in aerospace systems, principally focusing on communications technology in optical interconnects and optical networking.

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Efficient coefficient extraction from doublet resonances in microphotonic resonator transmission functions

CLEO: Science and Innovations, CLEO-SI 2015

Jones, Adam J.; Lentine, Anthony L.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Pomerene, Andrew P.; Norwood, Robert A.

We develop a computationally efficient and robust algorithm to automatically extract the coefficients of doublet resonances and apply this technique to 418 resonances in ring resonator transmission data with a mean RMS deviation of 7.28 × 10-4. © OSA 2015.

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A CMOS compatible external heater-modulator

2014 IEEE Optical Interconnects Conference, OI 2014

DeRose, Christopher T.; Kekatpure, Rohan; Starbuck, Andrew; Pomerene, Andrew; Lentine, Anthony L.

We present simulation and experimental results of a novel external heater-modulator structure. A heater efficiency of 21.3 μW/GHz is measured with no power penalty between heater off and heater on states observed at 10 Gbps. © 2014 IEEE.

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Thermal crosstalk limits for silicon photonic DWDM interconnects

2014 IEEE Optical Interconnects Conference, OI 2014

DeRose, Christopher T.; Martinez, Nicholas J.; Kekatpure, Rohan D.; Zortman, William A.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Pomerene, Andrew; Lentine, Anthony L.

We present theoretical modeling and experimental results of the thermal crosstalk and time constants of micro-disk modulators as a function of the spacing between nearby devices, taking into consideration the effects of dense metallic interconnects. © 2014 IEEE.

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Precision laser annealing of silicon devices for enhanced electro-optic performance

Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering

Bender, Daniel A.; DeRose, Christopher T.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Verley, Jason V.; Jenkins, Mark W.

We present results from laser annealing experiments in Si using a passively Q-switched Nd:YAG microlaser. Exposure with laser at fluence values above the damage threshold of commercially available photodiodes results in electrical damage (as measured by an increase in photodiode dark current). We show that increasing the laser fluence to values in excess of the damage threshold can result in annealing of a damage site and a reduction in detector dark current by as much as 100x in some cases. A still further increase in fluence results in irreparable damage. Thus we demonstrate the presence of a laser annealing window over which performance of damaged detectors can be at least partially reconstituted. Moreover dark current reduction is observed over the entire operating range of the diode indicating that device performance has been improved for all values of reverse bias voltage. Additionally, we will present results of laser annealing in Si waveguides. By exposing a small (<10 um) length of a Si waveguide to an annealing laser pulse, the longitudinal phase of light acquired in propagating through the waveguide can be modified with high precision, <15 milliradian per laser pulse. Phase tuning by 180 degrees is exhibited with multiple exposures to one arm of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer at fluence values below the morphological damage threshold of an etched Si waveguide. No reduction in optical transmission at 1550 nm was found after 220 annealing laser shots. © 2014 SPIE.

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Energy-efficient, digitally-driven "fat pipe" silicon photonic circuit switch in the UCSD MORDIA data-center network

Optics InfoBase Conference Papers

Aguinaldo, Ryan; Forencich, Alex; DeRose, Christopher T.; Lentine, Anthony L.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Fainman, Yeshaiahu; Porter, George; Papen, George; Mookherjea, Shayan

Using a compact (0.03 mm2) silicon photonic thermo-optic switch with five cascaded thermotopic phase-shifters, we demonstrate low insertion loss, low power, microsecond-scale cross-bar switching of twenty wavelength channels, each carrying 10 Gbit/second data concurrently. © 2014 OSA.

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Characterization of a silicon-photonic wideband switch in UCSD's MORDIA ring network

2014 IEEE Optical Interconnects Conference, OI 2014

Aguinaldo, Ryan; Forencich, Alex; DeRose, Christopher T.; Lentine, Anthony L.; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Fainman, Yeshaiahu; Porter, George; Papen, George; Mookherjea, Shayan

We demonstrate and investigate concurrent switching of twenty 10-Gbps channels using a silicon Mach-Zehnder interferometer switching structure with low on-state loss, low power, and microsecond-scale switching time. © 2014 IEEE.

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A silicon photonic channelized spectrum monitor for UCSD's multi-wavelength ring network

Optics InfoBase Conference Papers

Aguinaldo, Ryan; Weigel, Peter; Grant, Hannah; DeRose, Christopher T.; Lentine, Anthony L.; Pomerene, Andrew; Starbuck, Andrew L.; Tkacenko, Andre; Mookherjea, Shayan

A compact silicon photonic channelized optical spectrum monitor is designed and realized, which can replace a large rack-mounted OSA's channel power monitoring functionality, and the signal processing algorithm underlying its operation is described. © 2014 OSA.

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Silicon microring modulator with integrated heater and temperature sensor for thermal control

Lasers and Electro-Optics/Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference: 2010 Laser Science to Photonic Applications, CLEO/QELS 2010

DeRose, Christopher T.; Watts, Michael W.; Trotter, Douglas C.; Luck, David L.; Nielson, Gregory N.; Young, Ralph W.

The first demonstration of a silicon microring modulator with both an integrated resistive heater and diode-based temperature sensor is shown. The temperature-sensor exhibits a linear response for more than an 85 °C external temperature range. ©2010 Optical Society of America.

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71 Results
71 Results