A programmable, multi-format photonic transceiver platform enabling flexible optical networks

Development of programmable photonic devices for future flexible optical networks is ongoing. To this end, an innovative, multi-format QAM transmitter design is presented. It comprises a segmented-electrode InP IQ-MZM to be fabricated in InP, which can be directly driven by low-power CMOS logic. Arbitrary optical QAM format generation is made possible using only binary electrical signals, without the need for high-performance DACs and high-swing linear drivers. The concept enables a host of Tx-side DSP functionality, including the spectral shaping needed for Nyquist-WDM system concepts. In addition, we report on the development of an optical channel MUX/DEMUX, based on arrays of microresonator filters with reconfigurable bandwidths and center wavelengths. The device is intended for operation with multi-format flexible transceivers, enabling Dense (D)WDM superchannel aggregation and arbitrary spectral slicing in the context of a flexible grid environment.