Heterogeneously Integrated InP Electro-Absorption Modulator for Beyond 300 Gb/s Optical Links
Armands Ostrovskis, Krzysztof Szczerba, Toms Salgals, Erik Norberg, Michael Koenigsmann, John Sonkoly, Kristaps Rubuls, Han Yun, Benjamin Krüger, Molly Piels, Arvids Sedulis, Fabio Pittalà, Sandis Spolītis, Markus Gruen, Hadrien Louchet, R. G. Jahn, Kazuo Yamaguchi, Vjačeslavs Bobrovs, Xiaodan Pang, Robert S. Guzzon, Oskars Ozoliņš
Abstract
The recent AI boom requires more focus on energy-efficient and scalable optical interconnects. Silicon Photonics is enabling technology to satisfy growing demand. However, the lack of lasers and high-performance modulators hinders wide-scale adoption. Therefore, we present a heterogeneously integrated Indium Phosphide electro-absorption modulator with Silicon waveguides. We demonstrate up to 256 Gb/s on-off keying, 340 Gb/s 4-level pulse amplitude modulation, 375 Gb/s 6-level pulse amplitude modulation, and 360 Gb/s 8-level pulse amplitude modulation transmission over 500 m and 6 km of single-mode fiber with performance satisfying requirements of 6.25% overhead hard-decision forward error correction threshold of 4.5×10-3. Additionally, we investigate the modulator at 200 Gb/s per lane scenarios, demonstrating excellent performance with a simple seven-tap feed-forward equalizer.