Simulating Optical Single Event Transients on Silicon Photonic Waveguides for Satellite Communication

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are a promising platform for space applications. In particular, they have the potential to reduce the cost, size, weight, and power (C-SWaP) consumption of satellite payloads that employ free-space optical communication. However, the effect of the space environment on such circuits has yet to be fully understood. Here, a simulation framework to investigate the impact of heavy ions on a silicon photonic waveguide is presented. These high-energy particles temporarily increase the waveguide losses, resulting in a drop of the transmitted power, commonly defined as either optical single event transient (OSET) or single event effect (SEE). The magnitude and rate of such transients are simulated. The framework is based on three open-source tools: OMERE, Geant4, and Meep. First, the heavy ion fluxes are modeled for commonly used satellite orbits. Afterward, Monte Carlo simulations are used to generate realistic ion tracks and their effect is evaluated with 3-D finite-difference time-domain simulations. The results show that SEEs have only a small impact on the transmission properties of silicon waveguides in the simulated orbits, thus indicating the potential of using silicon PICs in the space environment. Furthermore, the importance of having realistic carrier distributions, compared to using only an analytical model, is discussed.