Optical signal receiver, an associated photonic integrated circuit (RxPIC), and method improving performance

US7116851B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Infinera Corp. · US

Inventors

• David F. Welch · Atherton, US
• Radhakrishnan L. Nagarajan · Santa Clara, US
• Fred A. Kish, Jr. · Palo Alto, US
• Mark J. Missey · San Jose, US
• Vincent G. Dominic · Fremont, US
• Atul Mathur · Beaverton, US
• Frank Peters · Cork, IE
• Charles H. Joyner · Sunnyvale, US
• Stephen G. Grubb · Atherton, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Oct 8, 2002
• Grant date: Oct 3, 2006
• Expiry date: Sep 11, 2023

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H01S5/5072
• WIPO field: Optics
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs), also referred to as opto-electronic integrated circuits (OEICs), and more particularly to a PIC in the form of an optical receiver PIC or RxPIC chip and an optical transmitter PIC (TxPIC) are employed in an optical transport network. Integrated on the RxPIC chip, starting at the input end which is coupled to receive multiplexed optical data signals from an optical transport network is an optical amplifier, an optical demultiplexer, and a plurality of on-chip photodiodes (PDs) each to receive a demultiplexed data signal from the AWG DEMUX for optical-to-electrical signal conversion. The optical input amplifier may be an on-chip gain clamped semiconductor optical amplifier (GC-SOA) or an off-chip fiber amplifier. The optical input amplifier may be optional if the channel signal demultiplexer provides for minimal insertion loss which is optimum with a properly designed arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) demultiplexer.