High-extinction-ratio low-voltage dual-racetrack modulator for low-power DAC-less PAM-4 modulation
Abstract
In a parallel-coupled dual-racetrack modulator, resonant light in two resonators can interfere with each other. In lieu of critical coupling, such interference is capable of producing high extinction ratios (ERs) for high-speed modulation. Experiments demonstrate ERs of over 9 dB at 50 Gb/s and 40–50% modulation depth enhancement compared with a single-resonator modulator at 50–56 Gb/s with a peak-to-peak driving voltage of 2.3 V. Furthermore, joint modulation of two racetracks offers the possibility to combine two separate bits of driving signals to generate four-level pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM-4) without an external digital-to-analog converter (DAC). To tackle the complex multi-variable transfer function of this modulator, a procedure for configuring PAM-4 states is theoretically developed. Finally, we demonstrate 100 Gb/s PAM-4 with an electro-optic modulation power consumption of < 40 fJ/bit for this device.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Feb 07, 2022
- Source ID
- 10.1364/ol.448441
Entities
People
- Chenbin Zhang
- Ding Ding
- Dun Mao
- Lemeng Leng
- Peiyan Zhao
- Tingyi Gu
- Wei Jiang
- Zhaobang Zeng
Organizations
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Ministry of Education
- Nanjing University
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- University of Delaware