Juliana Müller’s research while affiliated with RWTH Aachen University and other places

We demonstrate an optical arbitrary waveform measurement (OAWM) system that exploits a bank of silicon photonic (SiP) frequency-tunable coupled-resonator optical waveguide (CROW) filters for gapless spectral slicing of broadband optical signals. The spectral slices are coherently detected using a frequency comb as a multi-wavelength local oscillator (LO) and stitched together by digital signal processing (DSP). For high-quality signal reconstruction, we have implemented a maximum-ratio combining (MRC) technique based on precise calibration of the complex-valued opto-electronic transfer functions of all detection paths. In a proof-of-concept experiment, we demonstrate the viability of the scheme by implementing a four-channel system that offers an overall detection bandwidth of 140 GHz. Exploiting a femtosecond laser with precisely known pulse shape for calibration along with dynamic amplitude and phase estimation, we reconstruct 100 GBd QPSK, 16QAM and 64QAM optical data signals. The reconstructed signals show improved quality compared to that obtained with a single high-speed intradyne receiver, while the electronic bandwidth requirements of the individual coherent receivers are greatly reduced.

We present the design and experimental characterization of a silicon nitride pulse interleaver based on coupled resonator optical waveguide filters. In order to achieve a targeted free spectral range of 1.44 THz, which is large given the reduced optical confinement of the silicon nitride platform, individual ring resonators are designed with tapered waveguides. Its application to time-interleaved photonically-assisted ADCs is analyzed by combining experimental characterization of the photonic integrated circuit with a comprehensive model of the entire ADC. The impact of fundamental signal distortion and noise sources affecting the converter is investigated and suitable equalization techniques at the digital signal processing level are evaluated. The novel application of a simple but powerful equalization filter in the DSP domain allows for a significant improvement of the digitized signal SNR. An ENOB of 5 over a 75 GHz bandwidth (150 GS/s) and an ENOB of 4.3 over a 100 GHz bandwidth (200 GS/s) are expected to be achievable with compact and off-the-shelf single-section semiconductor mode locked lasers, that can be further improved with lower noise light sources.

We demonstrate an optical arbitrary waveform measurement (OAWM) system that exploits a bank of silicon photonic (SiP) frequency-tunable coupled-resonator optical waveguide (CROW) filters for gapless spectral slicing of broadband optical signals. The spectral slices are coherently detected using a frequency comb as a multi-wavelength local oscillator (LO) and stitched together by digital signal processing (DSP). For high-quality signal reconstruction, we have implemented a maximum-ratio combining (MRC) technique based on precise calibration of the complex-valued opto-electronic transfer functions of all detection paths. In a proof-of-concept experiment, we demonstrate the viability of the scheme by implementing a four-channel system that offers an overall detection bandwidth of 140 GHz. Exploiting a femtosecond laser with precisely known pulse shape for calibration along with dynamic amplitude and phase estimation, we reconstruct 100 GBd QPSK, 16QAM and 64QAM optical data signals. The reconstructed signals show improved quality compared to that obtained with a single high-speed intradyne receiver, while the electronic bandwidth requirements of the individual coherent receivers are greatly reduced.

We present optimized hourglass-shaped resonator CROW filters showing an improved power consumption of up to 30% when compared with standard circular ring shapes. Metal and doped waveguide heaters are compared in terms of efficiency, crosstalk and insertion losses.

Electrical-optical signal processing has been shown to be a promising path to overcome the limitations of state-of-the-art all-electrical data converters. In addition to ultra-broadband signal processing, it allows leveraging ultra-low jitter mode-locked lasers and thus increasing the aperture jitter limited effective number of bits at high analog signal frequencies. In this paper, we review our recent progress towards optically enabled time-and frequency-interleaved analog-to-digital converters, as well as their monolithic integration in electronic-photonic integrated circuits. For signal frequencies up to 65 GHz, an optoelectronic track-and-hold amplifier based on the source-emitter-follower architecture is shown as a power efficient approach in optically enabled BiCMOS technology. At higher signal frequencies, integrated photonic filters enable signal slicing in the frequency domain and further scaling of the conversion bandwidth, with the reconstruction of a 140 GHz optical signal being shown. We further show how such optically enabled data converter architectures can be applied to a nonlinear Fourier transform based integrated transceiver in particular and discuss their applicability to broadband optical links in general.

We demonstrate optical arbitrary waveform measurement (OAWM) using a silicon photonic spectral slicer. Exploiting maximal-ratio combining (MRC), we demonstrate the viability of the scheme by reconstructing 100-GBd 64QAM signals with high quality.

We demonstrate optical arbitrary waveform measurement (OAWM) using a silicon pho-tonic spectral slicer. Exploiting maximal-ratio combining (MRC), we demonstrate the viability of the scheme by reconstructing 100-GBd 64QAM signals with high quality.

The effect of phase noise introduced by optical sources in spectrally-sliced optically enabled DACs and ADCs is modeled and analyzed in detail. In both data converter architectures, a mode-locked laser is assumed to provide an optical comb whose lines are used to either synthesize or analyze individual spectral slices. While the optical phase noise of the central MLL line as well as of other optical carriers used in the analyzed system architectures have a minor impact on the system performance, the RF phase noise of the MLL fundamentally limits it. In particular, the corresponding jitter of the MLL pulse train is transferred almost one-to-one to the system-level timing jitter of the data converters. While MLL phase noise can in principle be tracked and removed by electronic signal processing, this results in electric oscillator phase noise replacing the MLL jitter and is not conducive in systems leveraging the ultra-low jitter of low-noise mode-locked lasers. Precise analytical models are derived and validated by detailed numerical simulations.

Novel analog-to-digital converter (ADC) architectures are motivated by the demand for rising sampling rates and effective number of bits (ENOB). The main limitation on ENOB in purely electrical ADCs lies in the relatively high jitter of oscillators, in the order of a few tens of fs for state-of-the-art components. When compared to the extremely low jitter obtained with best-in-class Ti:sapphire mode-locked lasers (MLL), in the attosecond range, it is apparent that a mixed electrical-optical architecture could significantly improve the converters' ENOB. We model and analyze the ENOB limitations arising from optical sources in optically enabled, spectrally sliced ADCs, after discussing the system architecture and implementation details. The phase noise of the optical carrier, serving for electro-optic signal transduction, is shown not to propagate to the reconstructed digitized signal and therefore not to represent a fundamental limit. The optical phase noise of the MLL used to generate reference tones for individual slices also does not fundamentally impact the converted signal, so long as it remains correlated among all the comb lines. On the other hand, the timing jitter of the MLL, as also reflected in its RF linewidth, is fundamentally limiting the ADC performance, since it is directly mapped as jitter to the converted signal. The hybrid nature of a photonically enabled, spectrally sliced ADC implies the utilization of a number of reduced bandwidth electrical ADCs to convert parallel slices, resulting in the propagation of jitter from the electrical oscillator supplying their clock. Due to the reduced sampling rate of the electrical ADCs, as compared to the overall system, the overall noise performance of the presented architecture is substantially improved with respect to a fully electrical ADC.

We investigate the transmission of densely multiplexed solitons using a photonic integrated chip and the nonlinear Fourier-transform and analyze required launch conditions, the effect of (de-)multiplexing and noise on the nonlinear spectrum, and equalization techniques that can be used to enhance the transmission performance.