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OSE6938W- ST: High-Speed Photonics

The course reviews working principles, underlying physical effects, and the design of high-speed optoelectronic devices and circuits for optical telecommunication and interconnect applications.

 

 Course Goals

The course complements the OSE courses on ‘fundamentals of optoelectronic devices’, ‘integrated photonics’, and ‘optical communication systems’ to deepen students’ education in photonic engineering.  The course’s goal is elucidating the key principles underlying the analysis and design of high-speed integrated photonic devices and circuits, with an emphasis on the engineering and practical aspects of them.  The students should be able to understand and design devices such as high-speed photodetectors and optical modulators, as well as their associated electronic circuits and microwave components at the end of the course.  The course also introduces selected advanced research topics currently pursued in the field.

 

Course Approach

To analyze and design high-speed optoelectronic devices and circuits, it is necessary to study the components that constitute them, the principles that underlie their operation, and their functional characteristics from the perspective of a device engineer. To this extent, the course will begin with a very brief review of the principles of optoelectronic devices, particularly photodetectors and electrooptic modulators. It will then quickly get into high-speed modeling of the devices, their bandwidth limitations, and other performance challenges such as noise.  The course will also cover associated electronic circuits and microwave components that are usually seamlessly integrated with high-speed photonic devices.

 

Suggested textbooks:

·         G. Giovanni, Semiconductor Devices for High-Speed Optoelectronics, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

·         W. S. Chang, Fundamentals of Guided-Wave Optoelectronic Devices, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

·         S. L. Chuang, Physics of Photonic Devices, 2nd Ed., Wiley, 2009.

·         J. M. Liu, Photonic Devices, Cambridge 2005.

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·                     PRE-REQUISITES  Graduate Standing; OSE 6111 , or Consent of Instructor 

·                     Topics:

  • Overview of fiber optic communication systems       
  • Propagation of signals in fibers
    1. Multimode fiber: Ray analysis, Graded-Index Fibers, Bandwidth, Modal noise
    2. Single-mode fiber: Pulse propagation, Group velocity dispersion, Polarization-mode dispersion (PMD), Optical dispersion compensation techniques.
    3. Fiber fabrication techniques
    4. Nonlinear effects in fibers
    5. Planar slab waveguides
    6. Waveguide modes, field distribution, and group velocity
    7. Rectangular channel
  • System performance of telecom lasers
    1. Operation principles, modulation, chirp, linewidth enhancement factor, phase and intensity noise characteristics             
  • Optical receivers
    1. Noise (Shot and thermal sources and PIN vs. APD)
    2. Sensitivity (Bit-error rate, minimum received power, quantum limit of detection)
    3. Sensitivity degradation (extinction ratio, intensity noise, timing jitter)            
  • Optical modulators
    1. Electro-optic modulators
    2. Electro-absorption modulators            
  • Optical amplifiers
    1. Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFA): gain spectrum and bandwidth, gain saturation and amplifier noise
    2. Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOA): basic design and characteristics               
  • Optical communication systems
    1. Loss- and dispersion-limited systems
    2. Power and rise time budgeting
    3. System Architectures (point-to-point, distributed and local area networks)
    4. Long-haul digital link design (sources of power penalty: modal noise, dispersive pulse broadening, mode-partition noise, frequency chirping and reflection feedback)
    5. Analog optical link design and CATV systems
    6. WDM systems    
  • Dispersion management
    1. Precompensation techniques (prechirp, novel coding and nonlinear prechirp)
    2. Postcompensation techniques
    3. Dispersion-compensating fibers
    4. Fiber Bragg gratings
  • Coherent optical systems
    1. Homodyne and heterodyne detectors
    2. Modulation formats (ASK, PSK and FSK)

Syllabi