Demonstration and Non-volatile Trimming of a Highly-Parallel, High-Capacity Silicon Microdisk Transmitter

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Luan, Chao, Sludds, Alex, Li, Chao, Christen, Ian, Hamerly, Ryan, Englund, Dirk
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Luan, Chao
Sludds, Alex
Li, Chao
Christen, Ian
Hamerly, Ryan
Englund, Dirk
author_facet Luan, Chao
Sludds, Alex
Li, Chao
Christen, Ian
Hamerly, Ryan
Englund, Dirk
contents Optical interconnects are the most promising solution to address the data-movement bottleneck in data centers. Silicon microdisks, benefiting from their compact footprint, low energy consumption, and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) capability, have emerged as an attractive and scalable platform for optical modulation. However, microdisk resonators inherently exhibit low fabrication error tolerance, limiting their practical deployment. Here, utilizing a CMOS photonics platform, we demonstrate 1.2 Tb/s of off-die bandwidth through a 64 microdisk modulator system. In addition, we develop an automated, close-looped, non-reversible, low-loss, and picometer-precision permanent wavelength tuning technique using laser trimming. The trimming technique reduces 33 % of the energy consumption needed to thermally tune the microdisk resonant wavelength. Using this technique, we achieve a fully passive, 5-channel dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM, 50 GHz spacing) transmitter. The integration of the high speed (1.2 Tb/s), low energy consumption (29 fJ/bit) and the permanent wavelength trimming lays a robust foundation for next-generation optical interconnect systems, poised to facilitate scaling of future AI and computing hardware.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_11146
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Demonstration and Non-volatile Trimming of a Highly-Parallel, High-Capacity Silicon Microdisk Transmitter
Luan, Chao
Sludds, Alex
Li, Chao
Christen, Ian
Hamerly, Ryan
Englund, Dirk
Optics
Applied Physics
Optical interconnects are the most promising solution to address the data-movement bottleneck in data centers. Silicon microdisks, benefiting from their compact footprint, low energy consumption, and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) capability, have emerged as an attractive and scalable platform for optical modulation. However, microdisk resonators inherently exhibit low fabrication error tolerance, limiting their practical deployment. Here, utilizing a CMOS photonics platform, we demonstrate 1.2 Tb/s of off-die bandwidth through a 64 microdisk modulator system. In addition, we develop an automated, close-looped, non-reversible, low-loss, and picometer-precision permanent wavelength tuning technique using laser trimming. The trimming technique reduces 33 % of the energy consumption needed to thermally tune the microdisk resonant wavelength. Using this technique, we achieve a fully passive, 5-channel dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM, 50 GHz spacing) transmitter. The integration of the high speed (1.2 Tb/s), low energy consumption (29 fJ/bit) and the permanent wavelength trimming lays a robust foundation for next-generation optical interconnect systems, poised to facilitate scaling of future AI and computing hardware.
title Demonstration and Non-volatile Trimming of a Highly-Parallel, High-Capacity Silicon Microdisk Transmitter
topic Optics
Applied Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11146