Fully integrated single-chip silicon photonic processor for analog optical and microwave signals

Abstract

We propose a single-chip analog signal processor built in silicon photonics technology, capable of implementing programmable operations on both optical and RF signals, and converting between the two domains. This chip contains a configurable modulator capable of both phase modulation and amplitude modulation, transfer-printed tunable laser sources, and a programmable optical filter bank. This chip can be configured to implement a variety of functions on both microwave signals and optical signals, including electro-optical and opto-electric conversion, optical and RF signal generation (tunable laser sources and opto-electronic oscillators) and filtering, and RF signal multiplexing.