High speed and small footprint silicon micro-ring modulator assembly for space-division-multiplexed 100-Gbps optical interconnection

Abstract

We designed and fabricated a 4-channel silicon micro-ring modulator (MRM) assembly chip with arrayed grating couplers for space-division-multiplexed optical interconnection. Only 4 channels out of 7 have been utilized with the consideration of popular multi-source-agreements (MSA) compatibility with respect to a 7-core multi-core-fiber (MCF). Experimental modulations at 10, 15, 20 and 25 Gbps have been carried out for all the four channels with clearly opened eye-diagrams which indicates a single-fiber aggregate capacity of 100 Gbps with only one laser input for SDM optical interconnection. The silicon MRM assembly demonstrated in this work is advantageous for practical applications due to its simplified modulation solution (NRZ-OOK) with high capacity (100-Gbps), small footprint (0.45 mm²) and long reach (1 km).