Continuous Wavelength Conversion of 40-Gb/s Data Over 100 nm Using a Dispersion-Engineered Silicon Waveguide

Abstract

We demonstrate broadband continuous wavelength conversion based on four-wave mixing in silicon waveguides, operating with data rates up to 40 Gb/s, validating signal integrity using bit-error-rate measurements. The dispersion-engineered silicon waveguide provides broad phase-matching bandwidth, enabling complete wavelength-conversion coverage of the <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">S</i> -, <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">C</i> -, and <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">L</i> -bands of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) grid. We experimentally show this with wavelength conversion of high-speed data exceeding 100 nm, and characterize the resulting power penalty induced by the wavelength conversion process. We then validate the bit-rate transparency of the all-optical process by scaling the data rate from 5 Gb/s up to 40 Gb/s at the 100-nm wavelength conversion configuration, showing consistent low power penalties, validating the robustness of the four-wave mixing process in the silicon platform for all-optical processing.