The proposed project will undertake the research, design, and development of key concepts and technologies for a high-speed electronically tunable channel filter, based on monolithically integrated ultra-high-resolution super-compact grating (UHR-SCG) technology that has been developed in OptoNet. The grating will be realized on Silicon-Photonic Electronic-Photonic Integrated (EPIC) Platform that has various large-scale manufacturing advantages. This project will be performed by a strong multidisciplinary team of industry and academic researchers, including device design and packaging experts from OptoNet Inc., and device physics and fabrication experts from Northwestern University. In Phase I of this project, we will deliver proof-of-concept high-speed tunable filter based on the UHR-SCG grating on EPIC platform utilizing semiconductor amplifiers as fast switches. The tunable filter chip will have 4 to 8 ITU-grid channels spanning 32nm wavelength bandwidth. The tuning speed will be
Benefit: Tunable filter is a key component in a DWDM fiber-optic network for military avionics applications. Our proposed works will be based on novel semiconductor device structure with compact size and strong filtering characteristics. By utilizing current injection in semiconductor amplifier materials, tunable filters with ultrafast nanosecond tuning speed can be achieved. It is anticipated that the technology developed for realizing the tunable filter will be suitable for strong potential use in numerous areas of the private sectors, including the rapidly growing market of optical interconnects and chip-to-chip or chip-level interconnects. In addition, there exist a number of other areas of importance to the federal government (e.g. DOD) where the technologies like those developed in this project could support key applications, such as packet or cell-level switching, next-generation all-optical packet routing networks, and ultrafast chip-to-chip interconnects for future super computers.
Keywords: WDM, WDM, tunable filter, fast tuning speed, narrow bandwidth, low side-lobe, Electronic-Photonic Integration, wide tuning range, silicon photonics
