Nonstoichiometric SiC Bus/Ring Waveguide Based All-Optical Data Format Follower and Inverter

Nonstoichiometric silicon carbide (SiC) bus/ring waveguide resonator based all-optical data-format follower and inverter is demonstrated to perform ultrafast dual-functional wavelength and data-format conversion. The buried Si quantum dots (Si-QDs) with strong quantum confinement effect effectively result in a significant change on the nonlinear refractive index of 3.14 × 10 –13 cm 2 /W, which induces a red-shift of 0.07 nm on the resonant wavelength comb of the nonstoichiometric SiC ring waveguide resonator. By injecting the 12 Gbit/s optical pulsed return-to-zero on–off keying (PRZ-OOK) data stream into the ring waveguide at a notched wavelength of 1551.08 nm, the induced red-shift on resonant wavelengths allows versatile all-optical data processing functions, including data wavelength conversion and data format following/inversion, on the data patterns transferred to the probe. The eye-opening diagram analysis at 12 Gbit/s reveals that the data transferred to the probe can provide a signal-to-noise ratio of 9.4 dB, and a receiving power penalty is degraded by 2.6 dB as compared to that of the pump data.