A 25Gb/s burst-mode receiver for rapidly reconfigurable optical networks

Abstract

Rapidly reconfigurable optical networks that keep the data in the optical domain potentially offer significant advantages in latency, bandwidth and power dissipation. Existing optical switch technologies (e.g., MEMS-based) are limited to millisecond-scale reconfiguration times, severely reducing their application space. The emerging field of silicon photonics enables optical switches operating on a nanosecond scale [1]. However, full utilization of the speed of these switches requires nanosecond-scale burst-mode transceivers, similar to those used in passive optical networks [2]. In this work, we reporta burst-mode receiver for optical links in a dynamically reconfigurable network. Through the introduction of interlocking search algorithms, a robust 25Gb/s burst-mode operation is achieved with 31ns lock time, -10.9dBm sensitivity, and 4.4pJ/b efficiency.