Letter abstract
Nature Photonics 2, 242 - 246 (2008)
Published online: 16 March 2008 | doi:10.1038/nphoton.2008.31
Subject Categories: Optoelectronic devices and components | Fibre optics and optical communications | Novel materials and engineered structures
High-throughput silicon nanophotonic wavelength-insensitive switch for on-chip optical networks
Yurii Vlasov1, William M. J. Green1 & Fengnian Xia1
Abstract
Recent advances in silicon nanophotonics, including demonstrations of ultracompact modulators1, 2, 3, 4, germanium waveguide photodetectors5, 6, 7 and wavelength-division multiplexers8, 9, 10, indicate the feasibility of on-chip optical interconnects integrated with multicore microprocessors11, 12, 13, 14. Studies13, 14 have suggested that direct replacement of part or all of the electrical interconnect wiring with point-to-point optical links11, 12 may not provide sufficient power savings to make this approach attractive to chip designers. However, if high-bandwidth optical signals can be switched and routed using an on-chip silicon nanophotonic interconnection network, significant performance gains can be expected13, 14. Here we show an ultracompact (40 
12 
m2) wavelength-insensitive switch based on cascaded silicon microring resonators, which may bring this vision closer to reality by serving as a critical basic element for scalable on-chip optical networks. Fast (<2 ns) error-free (bit error rate < 1 10-
12) switching of multiple (up to 9) 40-Gbit s-
1 optical channels is demonstrated in a temperature-insensitive (
15 °C) device.
- IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Centre, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA
Correspondence to: Yurii Vlasov1 e-mail: yvlasov@us.ibm.com
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