Ultra wide spectral range tunable laser, hybrid in silicon photonics for DWDM system applications

• Grant number: 14/21731-6
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: April 01, 2016
• End date: February 28, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Electrical Engineering - Telecommunications
• Principal Investigator: Wilson de Carvalho Junior
• Grantee: Wilson de Carvalho Junior
• Company: BrPhotonics Produtos Optoeletrônicos Ltda
• City: Campinas
• Associated researchers: Alexandre Passos Freitas

Abstract

The Project focus on researched and development of technologies to fabricate a tunable laser, with ultra large tuning range, covering the C and L optical bands. The device will be fabricated using a hybrid approach, using two gain chips and a silicon photonic circuit. Since the commercial gain chips has optical bandwidth of 40nm, it will be necessary to use two gain chips to cover 80nm bandwidth. The silicon photonics circuit is formed by two optical couplers, a multiplexing section a tunable cavity and a output mirror. The project will be developed following four steps: 1) Device Design, 2) Chip Fabrication, 3) Integration and 4) Test and Characterization. The Device Design will take care of simulation and analysis of each component of the silicon photonic circuit, covering optical coupling and thermal tuning simulation. The chip fabrication will be done by an external foundry still to be defined. The Integration of the photonic chip with the gain chip involves the mechanical setup and the optical coupling between the gain chip and the photonics chips. Finally, in the Test and Characterization phase, all optical properties of the hybrid component will be checked and compared with the design ones. Those values will be feedback on the simulation tools to fine tune the component properties. A new run of fabrication will be done using the redesigned parameters. Simultaneously work will be done on packaging of the tunable laser on CFP modules. (AU)