Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Low phase noise hybrid silicon mode-locked lasers

  • Review Article
  • Published:
Frontiers of Optoelectronics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper, we review recent results on hybrid silicon mode-locked lasers with a focus on low phase noise optical pulse generation. Taking a high level design approach to lowering phase noise, we show the need for long on-chip optical delay lines for mode-locked lasers to reach and overcome material limits. Key results include demonstration of the longest (cavity length 9 cm) integrated on-chip mode locked laser, 14 dB reduction of Lorentzian noise on a 20 GHz radio-frequency (RF) signal, and greater than 55 dB optical supermode noise suppression using harmonically mode locked long cavity laser, 10 GHz passively mode locked laser with 15 kHz linewidth using on-chip all optical feedback stabilization.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Juodawlkis PW, Twichell J C, Betts G E, Hargreaves J J, Younger R D, Wasserman J L, O’Donnell F J, Ray K G, Williamson R C. Optically sampled analog-to-digital converters. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 2001, 49(10): 1840–1853

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Rosales R, Merghem K, Martinez A, Accard A, Lelarge F, Ramdane A. High repetition rate two-section InAs/InP quantum-dash passively mode locked lasers. In: Proceedings of 23rd International Conference on Indium Phosphide and Related Materials. Berlin, 2011

    Google Scholar 

  3. Jiang L A, Abedin K S, Grein M E, Ippen E P. Timing jitter reduction in modelocked semiconductor lasers with photon seeding. Applied Physics Letters, 2002, 80(10): 1707–1709

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Drzewietzki L, Breuer S, Elsäßer W. Timing jitter reduction of passively mode-locked semiconductor lasers by self- and external-injection: numerical description and experiments. Optics Express, 2013, 21(13): 16142–16161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Lin C Y, Grillot F, Li Y, Raghunathan R, Lester L F. Microwave characterization and stabilization of timing jitter in a quantum-dot passively mode-locked laser via external optical feedback. IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 2011, 17(5): 1311–1317

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Fiol G, Kleinert M, Arsenijevic D, Bimberg D. 1.3 μm range 40 GHz quantum-dot mode-locked laser under external continuous wave light injection or optical feedback. Semiconductor Science and Technology, 2011, 26(1): 014006-1–014006-5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Heck M J R, Bauters J F, Davenport M L, Doylend J K, Jain S, Kurczveil G, Srinivasan S, Tang Y, Bowers J E. Hybrid silicon photonic integrated circuit technology. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 2013, 19(4): 6100117-1–6100117-17

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Liang D, Bowers J E. Highly efficient vertical outgassing channels for low-temperature InP-to-silicon direct wafer bonding on the silicon-on-insulator substrate. Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures, 2008, 26(4): 1560–1568

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Sodhi A, Beach S J, Chen L, Jacob-Mitos M, Roth J E, Bowers J, Theogarajan L. Heterogeneous optoelectronic integration using locally polymerized imprinted hard mask. Proceedings of SPIE Optoelectronic Integrated Circuits XV, 2013, 8628: 86280K-1–86280K-8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Koch B R, Fang A W, Cohen O, Bowers J E. Mode-locked silicon evanescent lasers. Optics Express, 2007, 15(18): 11225–11233

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Fang AW, Koch B R, Gan K G, Park H, Jones R, Cohen O, Paniccia M J, Blumenthal D J, Bowers J E. A racetrack mode-locked silicon evanescent laser. Optics Express, 2008, 16(2): 1393–1398

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Davenport M L, Kurczveil G, Heck M J R, Bowers J E. A hybrid silicon colliding pulse mode-locked laser with integrated passive waveguide section. In: Proceedings of 2012 IEEE Photonics Conference (IPC). Burlingame, CA, 2012, 816–817

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Bente E A J M, Barbarin Y, Heck M J R, Smit M K. Modeling of integrated extended cavity InP/InGaAsP semiconductor modelocked ring lasers. Optical and Quantum Electronics, 2008, 40(2–4): 131–148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Heck M J R, Davenport M L, Park H, Blumenthal D J, Bowers J E. Ultra-long cavity hybrid silicon mode-locked laser diode operating at 930 MHz. In: Proceedings of Optical Fiber Communication Conference. San Diego, California, 2010, OMI5

    Google Scholar 

  15. Cheung S, Baek J H, Soares F M, Scott R P, Zhou X P, Fontaine N K, Shearn M, Scherer A, Baney D M, Yoo S J B. Super-long cavity, monolithically integrated 1-GHz hybrid mode-locked InP laser for all-optical sampling. In: Proceedings of Photonics in Switching. Monterey, California, 2010, PWD2

    Google Scholar 

  16. Srinivasan S, Arrighi A, HeckM J R, Hutchinson J, Norberg E, Fish G, Bowers J E. Harmonically mode-locked hybrid silicon laser with intra-cavity filter to suppress supermode noise. IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 2014, 20(4): 1–8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Otto C, Lüdge K, Vladimirov A G, Wolfrum M, Schöll E. Delayinduced dynamics and jitter reduction of passively mode-locked semiconductor lasers subject to optical feedback. New Journal of Physics, 2012, 14(11): 113033

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Bauters J F, Heck M J R, John D D, Barton J S, Bruinink C M, Leinse A, Heideman R G, Blumenthal D J, Bowers J E. Planar waveguides with less than 0.1 dB/m propagation loss fabricated with wafer bonding. Optics Express, 2011, 19(24): 24090–24101

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Piels M, Bauters J F, Davenport M L, Heck M J R, Bowers J E. Low-loss silicon nitride AWG demultiplexer heterogeneously integrated with hybrid III-V/silicon photodetectors. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 2014, 32(4): 817–823

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

    Sudharsanan Srinivasan, Michael Davenport & John Bowers

  2. Department of Engineering, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Martijn J. R. Heck

  3. Aurrion Inc., Goleta, CA, 93117, USA

    John Hutchinson, Erik Norberg & Gregory Fish

Authors
  1. Sudharsanan Srinivasan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michael Davenport
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Martijn J. R. Heck
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. John Hutchinson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Erik Norberg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Gregory Fish
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. John Bowers
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sudharsanan Srinivasan.

Additional information

Sudharsanan Srinivasan received his Bachelors degree with specialization in Engineering Physics from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India (July 2009). He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests are in silicon photonics.

Michael Davenport received an undergraduate degree in Optical Engineering from the University of Alabama, Huntsville, in 2007, and a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2009, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering. His current research interests include low-noise mode-locked lasers for applications in optical networks microwave photonics, photonic integrated circuits.

Martijn J. R. Heck is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering of Aarhus University, where he is starting up a fabless group on photonic integration technologies and applications. He received the M.Sc. degree in Applied Physics and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands, in 2002 and 2008, respectively. From 2007 to 2008, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the COBRA Research Institute in Eindhoven, where he was engaged in the development of a technology platform for active-passive integration of photonic integrated circuits. From 2008 to 2009, he was with the Laser Centre, Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where he was involved in the development of integrated frequency-combs generators. From 2009 to 2013, he was Postdoctoral Researcher and Associate Director of the Silicon Photonics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, where he was involved in photonic integrated circuits based on the heterogeneous integration of silicon, silica and III/V photonics. His research interests are photonic integrated circuits fabricated in III/V, silicon and silica platforms and their application to interconnects, microwave photonics, sensors and biomedical imaging and spectroscopy.

John Hutchinson is a Staff Process Engineer at Aurrion. Dr. Hutchinson received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley, in Electrical Engineering in 1994. From 1994 to 2008, Dr. Hutchinson was a Staff Engineer at Intel’s Components Research department and Optical Platform Division. Prior to Aurrion, Dr. Hutchinson was a Principal Engineer at Emcore working on integrated photonics for telecommunications.

Erik Norberg received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), in 2011. At UCSB, he developed integrated photonic microwave filters and a high dynamic range integration platform on InP. He is an author/co-author on over 30 papers. Dr. Norberg is currently an Optoelectronic Design Engineer at Aurrion Inc. in Goleta CA, where he is developing integrated Si-photonic systems.

Gregory Fish is the Chief Technical Officer at Aurrion. Dr. Fish is considered a leading expert in the field of photonic integration with nearly 20 years of experience in the field of InP based photonic integrated circuits (PICs). He began his work in this area while obtaining a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1994 and later a M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1999. He is an author/coauthor on over 50 papers in the field and has 12 patents.

John Bowers holds the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology, and is the Director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency and a Professor in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Materials at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He is a cofounder of Aurrion, Aerius Photonics and Calient Networks. Dr. Bowers received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University and worked for AT& Bell Laboratories and Honeywell before joining UCSB. Dr. Bowers is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the IEEE, OSA and the American Physical Society. He is a recipient of the OSA/IEEE Tyndall Award, the OSA Holonyak Prize, the IEEE LEOS William Streifer Award and the South Coast Business and Technology Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He and coworkers received the EE Times Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Award for Most Promising Technology for the hybrid silicon laser in 2007.

Bowers’ research is primarily in optoelectronics and photonic integrated circuits. He has published 10 book chapters, 600 journal papers, 900 conference papers and has received 54 patents. He has published 180 invited papers and conference papers, and given 16 plenary talks at conferences.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Srinivasan, S., Davenport, M., Heck, M.J.R. et al. Low phase noise hybrid silicon mode-locked lasers. Front. Optoelectron. 7, 265–276 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12200-014-0420-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12200-014-0420-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation