Micrometer-scale all-optical wavelength converter on silicon

We demonstrate a highly integrated micrometer-scale low-power wavelength converter based on the free-carrier dispersion effect in silicon. The conversion is achieved through all-optical modulation of a silicon ring resonator by use of modulated cw control light. The ring resonator has a radius of 5 microm and a Q of approximately 10,000. Both inverted and noninverted modulation are achieved at a bit rate of 0.9 Gbits/s with a control power of 4.5 mW. The scaling of the required control power for operation with respect to the characteristics of the ring resonator is established.