This document summarizes Ashok Prabhu Masilamani's Ph.D. presentation on advanced silicon microring resonator devices for optical signal processing. It introduces microring resonators and their use in optical filters. It outlines Masilamani's research goals to explore new coupled microring topologies that can realize complex transfer functions. The document demonstrates experimental fabrication and testing of microring filters in silicon-on-insulator material. It also shows thermal tuning of microring resonances using integrated microheaters. The research contributes new coupled microring architectures and synthesis techniques for advanced optical signal processing.
Microwave Technologies, Inc., Ghaziabad, Microwave and Communication Lab Equ...
PhD_seminar_final
1. 1
Advanced silicon microring
resonator devices for optical
signal processing
Ph.D. Presentation
By
Ashok Prabhu Masilamani
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Alberta, Canada
Supervised by
Dr. Vien Van
2. 2
Content
Introduction
Background and research goals
New microring coupling topologies
Experimental demonstration of microring filters
Thermal tuning of microrings
Contributions
Future directions
3. 3
Introduction
Explosive growth in information
technology industry
Enormous data transfers between
computing nodes
RC delay and
skewing
Power
dissipation
Electrical interconnect bottleneck
I/O 1
I/O N
WDM
Mux
WDM
DeMux
Clock
Optical waveguide
Processor core 1 Processor core 2
The fiber optic Wavelength Division Multiplexing
(WDM) technology used in long distance
communications offers:
very high bandwidth interconnects
WDM based low interference interconnects
An optical interconnect layer
4. 4
Silicon photonics
Silicon based photonic devices are gaining interest as devices of the future
Especially the high index contrast SOI material system offers very compact device sizes
- Sub Micron dimension wires
- Tight bending radii
Conventional photonic
devices
Lasers: Inp, GaAs, InGaAs etc
Modulators: LiNbO3
Detectors: Inp, InGaAs, GaAs, SiGe
Monolithic Silicon components
A EO Modulator
A WDM filter
Q. Xu, B. Schmidt, S. Pradhan, and M. Lipson, Nature 435, 325 (2005)
Y. Vlasov et.al., Nature Photonics 2, 242 (2008)
Hybrid Silicon components
A hybrid Si Laser
Di Liang et. al., Opt. Express 17, 20355 (2009)
A hybrid Si photodetector
H. Park et. al., Optics Express 15, 6044 (2007).
Various material
systems &
Integration issues
5. 5
Microring resonators
2πR = mλ/neff
θin ≥ sin-1
(1/N)
Total internal reflection happens near the dielectric-air boundary.
Resonance condition of the microring resonator
Ray optics view
θin
R
A common building block seen in the silicon photonic
functionalities is the microring
Microrings are compact high-Q optical microcavities
Dielectric waveguide bent into a ring structure
Typically have radius in the range of tens to hundreds of
microns
6. 6
Microring add-drop filter
Add drop microring spectral
response
Schematic of a microring
resonator add-drop filter.
Input Si
Through St
Add Sa
Drop Sd
R
λ1, λ2 ... λd…λΝ
λ1 , λ2 ... λa …,λΝ
λd
λa
κο τ ο
κi τ i
Input waveguide
Output waveguide
λd
7. 7
Higher order filters
Existing microring-based filter architectures
Filters without transmission zeros Filters with transmission zeros
Serially-coupled
microring filters
Parallel cascaded
microring filters
MZI loaded with all-pass
microring filters
Disadvantage
Can realize all-pole
transfer functions only
Disadvantage
Poles cannot be
independently controlled
Disadvantage
The round-trip phases have
to be precisely controlled
st
si sd
sa
1 2 3 N
st
si sd
sa
1 2 3 N
sd
si st
sa
1 2 3 N
sd
si st
sa
1 2 3 N si
s2
1 2 N/2
N/2+1 NN/2+2
s1si
s2
1 2 N/2
N/2+1 NN/2+2
s1
ϕ1
ϕ2 ϕΝ/2
ϕΝ/2+1 ϕΝ/2+2 ϕΝ
ψsi
s2
1 2 N/2
N/2+1 NN/2+2
s1si
s2
1 2 N/2
N/2+1 NN/2+2
s1
ϕ1
ϕ2 ϕΝ/2
ϕΝ/2+1 ϕΝ/2+2 ϕΝ
ψ
-50 0 50
-100
-50
0
Four Transmission zerosButterworth,
Chebyshev
Elliptic,
Inverse Chebyshev
8. 8
Research Goals
To explore, propose and demonstrate new coupled resonator
topologies based on microring resonators in SOI material system
which can be used to realize complex optical transfer functions.
Explore new coupled microring architectures that could overcome the disadvantages of
existing microring filter architectures.
Develop analysis and synthesis techniques for these new coupled microring architectures.
Experimental demonstration of microring filters in the SOI platform.
Explore the limits of miniaturization of microring resonators in SOI to reduce the device foot
prints.
Develop the fabrication process for SOI material system with integrated micro heater
elements.
Demonstrate thermo-optic control and tunability of microring filters using micro heaters.
Specific research goals:
10. 10
General 2D Coupling Topology
N N-1
1 2 m
2m m+1
μi μ1,2
μo μN-1,N
μ1,2m
St
Sr
Si
µi,j = energy coupling coefficient between microrings i and j.
µi, µo = couplings to input and output bus waveguides
Si, Sr, St = input, reflected and transmitted signals
Energy coupling matrix:
A direct synthesis procedure was developed which allows arbitrary filter shapes to be designed and realized
This topology can realize a filter with N poles and N-2 transmission zeros.
∆+−
∆
∆
∆+−
=
NoNNN
N
N
Ni
j
j
ωµµµµ
µωµµ
µµωµ
µµµωµ
2/
2/
M
2
,3,2,1
,333,23,1
,23,222,1
,13,12,11
2
2D array of N asynchronously tuned microring
resonators mutually coupled to each other via
energy coupling coefficients μi,j.
V. Van, J. Lightw. Technol. 25, 584 (2007).
A. M. Prabhu and V. Van, Optics Express 15, 9645, (2007).
11. 11
Synthesized transmission (black) and reflection (blue) characteristics
along with a Butterworth response (red) of the same order
Filter layout for 7 pole 3 zero 25 GHz asymmetric filter
Numerical example
4 5 6
1 2 3
7
]0.16340.3955][0.62470.2967][9066.00.1600[
]1.02510.0476][0.37510.3910][0.81600.266][1.04450.0902[
)1.669)(1.4)(995.1(
)(
jsjsjs
jsjsjsjs
jsjsjs
sH
−+−+−+
−+++++++
−−+
=
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
frequency detune, ∆f (GHz)
transmission(dB)
−−
−
−
8923.0
2088.427650.2
01662.453269.35
005723.416984.58
00005104.33
2088.420004642.447966.4
02088.420002088.428923.0
Synthesized Energy coupling matrix:
To realize transmission zeros located on the imaginary axis jω, the filter requires negative
couplings between neighbour microring resonators.
To realize a negative coupling coefficient, the coupling angle between adjacent resonators
must be between 3π/2 and 2π, so that micro-racetracks with long coupling lengths are
required
g κ
RLc
12. 12
Generalized ladder microring topology
Cross port
Bar portInput port
M1 M2 Mk MN
γ2
γk
a0
b0
dk
ck ak
bk
aN
bN
stage k
M1 M2 Mk MN
γ2
γk
a0
b0
dk
ck ak
bk
aN
bN
stage k
γ2 γ3input TB
TX
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
5
5
3
4
2
1
6
γ2 γ3input TB
TX
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
5
3
4
2
1
6
A filter architecture based on a parallel-ladder array of
symmetric microring networks with inter-stage phase shifts.
Can realize general transfer functions with transmission
zeros
symmetric microring networks
Use only synchronous microring resonators
All-positive coupling coefficients
Each stage can be independently optimized
Can be reduced to only 1 phase shift element even with
multiple stages
⇒ less demand on fabrication
The detailed analysis and synthesis procedures are
available in reference
– the differential phase shift in the upper branch
.1,0 ±=⇒= kk γπθ
kj
k e θ−
=γ
A. M. Prabhu, H. L. Liew and V. Van, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 25, 1505 (2008).
13. 13
A numerical example
1.40862.8863.29752.1307
4017.124064.0
)(
)(
)( 234
2
++++
−
==
ssss
s
sQ
sP
sTt
1.40862.8863.29752.1307
13926.00276.1
)(
)(
)( 234
24
++++
++
==
ssss
ss
sQ
sR
sTr
-40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40
-80
-70
-60
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
Frequency detune, ∆f (GHz)
Transmission(dB)
μ10 μ20
μ11 μ21
μ12 μ22
bk-1 bk
ak-1 ak
γk
'
ka
'
kb
µk0
= mk2
µk1
γk
Stage 1 0.7357 1.1923
Stage 2 1.2607 0.5575 -1
Synthesized transmission and reflection characteristics of a 25 GHz
4th
order elliptic filter
18. 18
Microring Miniaturization
1.5μm Radius 1.0μm Radius
1540 1560 1580 1600 1620
-30
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
wavelength (nm)
transmission(dB)
R = 1.0µm
m = 9 m = 8
1520 1530 1540 1550 1560 1570 1580
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
wavelength (nm)
transmission(dB)
R = 1.3µm
m = 12 m = 11
FSR = 52 nm
3dB Bandwidth = 1.2 nm
Insertion loss = 0.95 dB
FSR = 80.5 nm
3dB Bandwidth = 3.3 nm
Insertion loss = 1 dB
TM polarisation
19. 19
Loss performance of the
devices
0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
radius (µm)
roundtriploss(dB) Theoretical bending loss
Theoretical coupling loss
Extracted bending loss
Theoretical and extracted bending losses are in very good agreement
Coupling loss dominates for microring radius < 1.3 µm
20. 20
Fourth-order double-microring ladder filterFourth-order double-microring ladder filter
Stage 1 Stage 2
g0
( κ0
)
g1
( κ1
)
g2
( κ2
)
g3
( κ3
)
g4
( κ4
)
g5
( κ5
)
Designed Values
200nm
(0.2654)
340nm
(0.0534)
200nm
(0.2654)
265nm
(0.1470)
265nm
(0.1154)
265nm
(0.1470)
Designed and measured coupling gaps and the corresponding power coupling coefficients of a 4th-order elliptic
microring ladder filter with two stages
Port 2Port 2
1
2
3
4
L = 25µm
g1 , κ1
g2 , κ2 g5 , κ5
g4 , κ4
Lt LtLc
g0 , κ0 g3 , κ3
R = 8µm, Lt = 5µm, W = 300nm, Wc = 600nm, Lc = 1.65µm
WWcPort 1Port 1
InputInput
dropdrop
thruthru
ππ - phase shift- phase shift
Tt
Tr
R
21. 21
Experimental ResultsExperimental Results
All four microrings – detuned from each other
To correct the resonance mismatches
thermo-optic tuning
1
2
3
4
Port 1Port 1 ThroughThrough
DropDrop
π-phase shifter
SEM image of an SOI 4th
-order double-microring ladder filter
1530 1535 1540 1545 1550 1555 1560
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
Wavelength (nm)
Transmission(dB)
FSR
23. 23
Microheater design
Silicon substrate
SiO2 (1 μm)
Cladding (1 μm)
Silicon (340 nm)
Thin film heater ~ (150 nm)
Optical
Cladding layer
Microring
layer
100 ºC
60 ºC
PECVD SiO2 or SU8
SOI wafer
Au / Al / Ti / TiW
Optical
Cladding layer
A top view of the microheater
A cross sectional view of the
microheater
Thin metal films drawm into wires acts as resistive
elements and can produce heat due power dissipation
24. 24
Heater fabrication process
Cleaned SOI chip with microring
patterns
10μm PECVD SiO2 deposition
Etch back to 1μm thick PECVD SiO2
E-beam lithography
Metal deposition based on RF sputtering Lift - off and remaining heater layer
Top view of gold micro heaters.
Width = 800nm
Thickness = 150nm
Maximum resistance = 150Ω
25. 25
Optimized TiW based heaters
1
2
3
4
5
Port 1
Port 2
Port 3
Port 4
Micro heater 1 =
5.8 kΩ
Micro heater 2 =
4.2 kΩ
Micro heater 3 =
5.7 kΩ
Micro heater 4 =
4 kΩ
Micro heater 5 =
2 kΩ
Measured heater resistances
Optimized microheaters
Mounted chip Ag epoxy Bond PCB
The wire bonded microring chip with microheaters
26. 26
Thermally tuned fourth order filter
1530 1532 1534 1536 1538 1540 1542
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Wavelength (nm)
NormalizedPower
-100 -50 0 50 100
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
frequency (GHz)
Transmission(dB)
Bandwidth ~ 100 GHz
FSR = 10nm
Heater 1 & 2 = 6.25 mA
Heater 3 = 2.1 mA
Heater 4 = 1.1 mA
Stage 1 Stage 2
κ0
κ1
κ2
κ3
κ4
κ5
Extracted
Values
0.342 0.234 0.342 0.558 0.0785 0.558
1530 1532 1534 1536 1538 1540 1542
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Wavelength (nm)
NormalizedPower
Ring 1 & 2
Ring 3 Ring 4
1
2
3
4
Port 1Port 1 ThroughThrough
DropDrop
Drop Response without heating
Drop Response with thermal tuning
27. 27
Key Contributions
General 2D array of direct-coupled asynchronous microring
resonators:
-Arbitrary filter shapes can be designed and realized.
- Requires negative couplings to realize transmission zeros
General cascaded microring network topology:
- Modular design approach.
- All positive coupling elements
Demonstration of ultra-compact silicon microring resonators
Demonstration of a fourth order silicon microring ladder filter
28. 28
Future directions
Permanent post fabrication tuning methodology based on laser
ablation of microring (D. Bachman et. al., IPR 2010)
Demonstration of advanced optical signal processing functions
such as
dispersion compensators
maximally flat group delay filters for optical buffering
Demonstration of extremely high order filters (e.g., N > 10)
using the modular design approach with the ladder
architecture.
Current growth in IT industry has lead to massive data transfers between computing nodes
this has choked the electrical interconnects (bandwidth limitation)
One solution proposed is to use the well established WDM based optical interconnects to chip level as depicted in this picture where the critical electrical bus signals are multiplexed and sent over on optical waveguide
To bring optical interconnects to chip level we need integration of photonic devices which has a integration botteleneck due to the various material systems used.
However recently si based photonic devices are gaining interest which could solve the integration problem.
Some examples of Si photonic devices are shown below. Note that some are plainly si based and some of Si hybrid.
Also we can note that microring resonator has been a common photonic functionality in these demonstratiuons.
So what is a microring? – compact high Q optical cavity
Formed by bending a dilelectric waveguide in to a ring structure as shown.
When light is coupled in, it travels around the circumference as shown for wavelengths that satisfy the given resonance condition
Microrings are used to add and drop data channels in WDM systems. A single microring based add-drop filter configuration is shown here. Muliplexed datachannels go in to the IP WG. The drop - channel whose resonates into the ring and goes out via the drop arm. Similarly we can add a channel.
If we plot te spectral response at the through and drop ports it would look as shown. We can see that at the drop channel wavelength there is a dip in the thru and peak in the drop port signifying the dropped channel. How well this operation is performed can be measured by the IL, TPE.
In real scenarios, often we need dense WDM systems. DWDM systems need much more sharp roll than this which brings in higher order filters (i.e multiple coupled microrings)
Some existing coupled microring architectures:
Serial coupled – only all pass transfer functions
Parallel coupled and MZI loaded micorings – can realize filters with transmission zeros – i.e. sharp roll off characteristics needed in DWDM systems. Problem is that in PC filters poles cannot be indep controlled and MZI one needs the phases of microrings precisely controlled.
With this background we aim to propose new multiple coupled microring architectures which over come the disadvantages seen in previous slide. Also we target to demonstrate microing add-drop filters in the SOI platform.
Not just propose new topologies but also develop analysis and synthesis techniques for them.
To demonstrate these filters we aim to develop the fabrication process
We also aim to explore the limits of miniaturizing these mircoring devices.
1st architeture we propose is a 2D array of coupled microrings (which are de-tuned with each other as well) as shown in the fig. We developed the analysis and synthesis procedures for this topology which allows us to realize complex spectral shapes. The synthesis provides powerful way to extract the coupling matrix for a given filter transfer function.
Here we show a synthesized filter example for the 7th order asymmetric filter transfer function, The 2D synthesized layout is shown in the figure along with the corresponding extracted coupling matrix.
The values in the diagonal are the de-tunings from the center frequency.
Needs negative coupling elements which require the racetrack approach (long coupling lengths). Big constarint on the layout.
So we proposed a new architecture called the cascaded ladder architecture. Here each arm in the ladder is a 2D microring network. The analysis and synthesis procedures are available in the references. Main advantages – all positive coupling coefficients. Modularized design approach i.e. each stage can be independently designed and optimized. It requires a phase shift element which are much easier to design.
Here we see a simple ladder architecture filter synthesized. It’s a elliptic filter with two transmission zeros. 4 rings, 2 stages as shown in figure.
To demonstrate these topologies we needed to develop a fabrication process - @ UofA Nanfab facility.
We used a SOI material system which had 340 nm thick Silicon on top with a 1um buffer oxide.
The process flow has 2 important steps – E – beam lithograpy and plasma etching.
E-beam required for high resolution pattering (we need coupling gaps as small as ~ 200nm)
Plasma etching for vertical sidewall for the waveguides.
These two figure show the achievable quality of the fab process we developed. 1st is a 400x340 waveguides. We notice the vertical sidewalls as well as the smooth surface. The second picture shows the cleaved edge of the waveguide into which the light can be coupled in.
Armed with this fab process we attempted to make a compact microring i.e. with a radius of 5um. SEM shows a top view of the ring.
The measured spectral response of the microring is shown here. Notably it had a low insertion loss of 1dB
0.2 nm = how many GHz
Once we made a compact ring we decided to explore the further miniaturization by attempting to make rings from 1.5 to 1um radii (i.e wavelength scale). Theoretically these ultra-compact rings were suppose to have high bending losses.
Despite the device losses, the ultracompact add-drop microrings delivered excellent filter characteristics like low insertion loss, wide bandwidth and wide FSR
Blue curve loss due to tight bending per one round trip (theory). We were able to get experimental values close to the theory except for 1.1um radius ring (due to a fabrication anomaly). Also we noted that the loss at coupling junctions dominate more for radius less than 1.3 um
Next we wanted to demonstarte a higher order fileter. The Ladder topology chosen over the 2D microring topology because it is much simpler to implement a single phase shift element connecting two stages than realizing a negative coupling coefficient required in the latter architecture
We took the synthesized example from the ladder architecture and obtained the physical parameters like waveguide widths, ring radius, coupling gaps etc. We also designed the phase shift element as a tapered waveguide shown.
The SEM picture shows the image of one of the devices we fabricated. As shown in the figure input is at port 1 and we show the thru and drop ports. Measurement at the drop port shows a spectral response like this. We saw that the errors of 5-10nm in the fabrication can de-tune the microring resonances which resulted in this spectral shape. So we need to tune these resonance back in place. We decided to use thermo-optic control for this.
To do thermal control of the microring resonance we planned to install micro-sized heaters on top as depicted in the picture. The second picture gives an idea of additional process required to install them. Here the heater material is a metal which when current is passed through them starts heating up due to the resistance. This heat then travels thru cladding and reaches the ring WG and changes the effective index – i.e. shifts the resonance of the ring.
Cladding should provide opical isolaotion but also leads to thermal loss.
Process flow steps to install heaters. PECVD SiO2 dep. and etch back. E-beam to define heater. Metal was sputtered and using lift-off the heater was installed. The figure shows the installed gold heaters. Provided max resistance of 150 ohms. Experimental work.
We then optimized to heater material and settled for TiW which provided higher resistances and more reliable. The lower figure shows a chip with heaters on which was then wire bonded using silver epoxy to a PCB custom designed to pass DC current to the heaters.
Then we conducted experiments with the wire-bonded chip by supplying DC currents to the heaters using LM 334 based current control circuits. With heaters 1 and 2 maintained at 6.25 mA and heaters 3and 4 with 2 and 1 mA currents we were able to tune all the microring resonances in to one single peak as shown in the figure. We performed curve fitting to extract the corresponding device parameters which confirmed that the peak was a fourth order filter response. But this wasn’t the same 4th order filter we designed. While attempting to fine tune the peak, three of the 4 heaters broke down due to over heating. Nevertheless the earlier achieved peak is a 4th order filter.