Indium Phosphide Photonic Integrated Circuits for Free Space Optical Links

Hongwei Zhao; Sergio Pinna; Bowen Song; Ludovico Megalini; Simone Tommaso Šuran Brunelli; Larry A Coldren; Jonathan Klamkin

doi:10.1109/JSTQE.2018.2866677

Indium Phosphide Photonic Integrated Circuits for Free Space Optical Links

IEEE J Sel Top Quantum Electron. 2018 Nov;24(6):6101806. doi: 10.1109/JSTQE.2018.2866677. Epub 2018 Aug 23.

Authors

Hongwei Zhao¹, Sergio Pinna², Bowen Song³, Ludovico Megalini⁴, Simone Tommaso Šuran Brunelli⁵, Larry A Coldren⁶, Jonathan Klamkin⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA (hwzhao@ece.ucsb.edu).
² Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA (pinna@ece.ucsb.edu).
³ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA (bowen@ece.ucsb.edu.
⁴ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. He is with Infineon Technologies, Italy (megalini@engineering.ucsb.edu).
⁵ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA (ssuranbrunelli@umail.ucsb.edu).
⁶ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA (coldren@ucsb.edu).
⁷ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA (klamkin@ucsb.edu).

Abstract

An indium phosphide (InP)-based photonic integrated circuit (PIC) transmitter for free space optical communications was demonstrated. The transmitter consists of a sampled grating distributed Bragg reflector (SGDBR) laser, a high-speed semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA), a Mach-Zehnder modulator, and a high-power output booster SOA. The SGDBR laser tunes from 1521 nm to 1565 nm with >45 dB side mode suppression ratio. The InP PIC was also incorporated into a free space optical link to demonstrate the potential for low cost, size, weight and power. Error-free operation was achieved at 3 Gbps for an equivalent link length of 180 m (up to 300 m with forward error correction).

Keywords: Free space communication; Mach-Zehnder modulator; optical interconnect; photonic integrated circuit; sampled grating DBR laser; semiconductor optical amplifier.

Grants and funding

NNX16AD15G/NASA/United States