Abstract
Heterogeneous integration of III-V semiconductors on silicon has gained considerable momentum fueled by the need to implement fully functional photonic devices and circuits in a CMOS compatible platform. In this communication, we report on a III-V photonic crystal (PhC) nanocavity, heterogeneously integrated on a silicon-on-insulator platform, to form a PhC nanocavity laser capable of exhibiting two elementary static random access memory (SRAM) cell functions individually, namely switching and latching operations under a high-speed, bit-level regime. As such, the PhC nanocavity laser is examined as a generic logic functions building block, suitable toward multiGb/s energy-efficient, optical SRAM cells with minimal device footprint. The proposed device occupies a total area of only 6.2 μm2, rendering in this way the demonstrated memory element the smallest among the integrated optical memories presented so far. Bit-level SRAM cell operation requires two elementary functions: the access gate (AG) switching function and set-reset flip-flop (SR-FF) latching function. At first, AG switching operation is evaluated through successful wavelength conversion at 10 Gb/s, revealing a power penalty of 1 dB at 10-9 BER and a switching energy of only 4.8 fJ/bit. Then, fully functional SR-FF memory operation is successfully demonstrated, exhibiting error-free operation with negative power penalty at 5 Gb/s and switching energies of 6.4 fJ/bit. FF operation at higher speeds of 10 Gb/s with reduced switching energy levels of 3.2 fJ/bit is also experimentally investigated. Both logic operations were demonstrated separately with the same PhC nanocavity laser device exhibiting <50 ps switching times and evaluated under real-type data traffic patterns, raising expectations for beyond 20 Gb/s capabilities toward implementing energy-efficient, ultracompact and high-speed true optical SRAM setups for Datacom applications.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 7517367 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics |
Volume | 22 |
Issue number | 6 |
Early online date | 20 Jul 2016 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Nov 2016 |
Keywords
- access gate
- Optical flip flop
- Optical memories
- photonic crystal nanocavity laser
- wavelength conversion
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Profiles
-
Dr George Kanellos
- Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering - Senior Lecturer in Electrical & Electronic Engineering
- High Performance Networks Group (HPN)
Person: Academic , Academic