An optical digital‐to‐analog converter with a built‐in intensity converter consisting of silicon waveguide

Abstract

Abstract Optical digital‐to‐analog converters (DACs) are key to overcoming the enormous power consumption caused by the slowdown of Moore's Law. In previous work, an optical DAC consisting of a signal generator and an intensity converter was presented. The generating component was integrated into the device, but a higher level of device integration is desirable. An optical DAC device with a built‐in intensity converter for a 2‐bit binary phase‐shift keying (BPSK) signal is demonstrated. The integrated device consists of two delay line interferometers (DLIs) with silicon waveguides. The first is used to generate a quadrature PSK (QPSK) signal from two BPSK signals, and the second is used to convert the QPSK constellation into light intensities. Experimental results show that the 2‐bit digital codes 00, 01, 10, and 11 can be successfully converted into four different light intensities depending on their pattern at 10 Gbps.

Keywords

• digital‐analogue conversion
• optical waveguides