Thermal stabilization of a microring modulator using feedback control

Padmaraju, Kishore; Chan, Johnnie; Chen, Long; Lipson, Michal; Bergman, Keren

doi:10.1364/oe.20.027999

Cited by 129 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 28 publications

(30 reference statements)

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“…The feedback controller in any implemented control system is likely to be some digital or analog manifestation of a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller, a robust and simple method of achieving closed-loop feedback control [27]. However, there is no clear consensus as to what the best method to monitor the drift of the microring resonator is.…”

Section: Methods For Control-based Solutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, for typical applications, deviations in temperature > 1 K will render the microring-based device inoperable [27]. This susceptibility of microringbased devices is not compatible with the temperature ranges typical of microelectronic environments.…”

Section: Thermal Effects On Microring Resonator Based Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Running current through these resistive structures generates heat, which can be used to tune the local temperature of the microring resonator. A noted alternative, available for carrier-injection microring modulators, is to adjust the bias current of the diode junction to directly heat the microring resonator [27,49,50]. This technique was used to implement the first control system for thermally stabilizing a microring resonator for data applications [27].…”

Section: Integrated Heatersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A noted alternative, available for carrier-injection microring modulators, is to adjust the bias current of the diode junction to directly heat the microring resonator [27,49,50]. This technique was used to implement the first control system for thermally stabilizing a microring resonator for data applications [27]. However, while effective, bias tuning has a limited temperature tuning range [49], and was found to have deleterious effects on the generated optical modulation [27].…”

Section: Integrated Heatersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This technique was used to implement the first control system for thermally stabilizing a microring resonator for data applications [27]. However, while effective, bias tuning has a limited temperature tuning range [49], and was found to have deleterious effects on the generated optical modulation [27]. The preferred solution is to use an integrated heater to separate the high-speed electrical operation of the microring resonator from its (relatively) low-speed thermal stabilization.…”

Section: Integrated Heatersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Resolving the thermal challenges for silicon microring resonator devices

2014

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Silicon microring resonators have been hailed for their potential use in next-generation optical interconnects. However, the functionality of silicon microring based devices suffer from susceptibility to thermal fluctuations that is often overlooked in their demonstrated results, but must be resolved for their future implementation in microelectronic applications. We survey the emerging efforts that have been put forth to resolve these thermal susceptibilities and provide a comprehensive discussion of their advantages and disadvantages.Keywords: integrated photonics; microring resonators; optical interconnects; silicon photonics. The growing bandwidth needs within data applications have motivated the replacement of traditionally electronic links with optical links for information networks as diverse as data centers, supercomputers, and fiber-optic access networks [1,2]. Applications such as these stress the traditional portfolio of optical components, rebalancing the emphasis from expensive high-performance components towards low-cost high-volume components that can be closely integrated with electronics. With these considerations in mind, the silicon photonics platform has received wide attention for its ability to deliver the necessary bandwidth required at an economy-of-scale that will be enabled by its compatibility with CMOS fabrication processes [3].Within the silicon photonic platform, traditional optical components such as low-loss waveguides [4], lowloss waveguide crossings [5], high-speed mach-zhender modulators (MZM) [6], arrayed waveguide-gratings [7], and efficient photodetectors [8,9] have been demonstrated. Leveraging the high index contrast between silicon and silicon-on-insulator, the aforementioned components have been shown with much smaller footprints than their counterparts in more conventional optical platforms. For active devices, these smaller footprints directly translate to higher energy-efficiencies.In addition to providing these improvements in footprint and energy-efficiency for traditional devices, the high-index contrast present in the silicon photonic platform enables the effective use of microring-based devices. A microring is a traveling wave resonator consisting of a ring structure side-coupled to a bus waveguide. While they have also been demonstrated in other material platforms, the high-index contrast of silicon and silicon-oninsulator has allowed them to be manifested as small as 1.5 µm in radius [10], and when used in conjunction with the free-carrier dispersion effect [11], well into Ghz-rate bandwidth. Figure 1A illustrates the optical resonance of the microring and its shift with applied electrical bias [12]. In their most basic capacity they can serve as effective filters [13], switches [14,15], and modulators [16,17]. Additionally, microrings can be cascaded along the same waveguide bus, with each microring being offset to provide functionality for a specific wavelength. In this manner, the microring lends itself naturally for wavelength-divisionmultiplexed ...

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Section: Methods For Control-based Solutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Thermal Effects On Microring Resonator Based Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%