Micro-transfer printing of InP SOAs on advanced silicon photonics platform for C-band pre-amplified receivers

Abstract

We present a C-band pre-amplified receiver on an advanced silicon photonics platform, consisting of an indium phosphide semiconductor optical amplifier (InP SOA) integrated via micro-transfer printing (μTP), connected to a ring filter and a 50GHz germanium photodiode (Ge PD). The InP SOA provides 8.1dB small-signal gain at 1550.3nm for an injection current of 95mA. The ring filter has a 25dB extinction ratio and a 3dB bandwidth of 1.45nm to suppress the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise from the SOA. In the 30 Gbps non-return-to- zero (NRZ) signal transmission experiment, the device exhibits a sensitivity of −18dBm at a bit-error rate (BER) of 10−6 for an SOA injection current of 95mA, showing a 7dB improvement compared to the reference Ge PD.