Silica micro-rod resonator-based Kerr frequency comb for high-speed short-reach optical interconnects

摘要: Conventional data center interconnects rely on power-hungry arrays of discrete wavelength laser sources. However, growing bandwidth demand severely challenges ensuring the power and spectral efficiency toward which data center interconnects tend to strive. Kerr frequency combs based on silica microresonators can replace multiple laser arrays, easing the pressure on data center interconnect infrastructure. Therefore, we experimentally demonstrate a bit rate of up to 100 Gbps/λ employing 4-level pulse amplitude modulated signal transmission over a 2 km long short-reach optical interconnect that can be considered a record using any Kerr frequency comb light source, specifically based on a silica micro-rod. In addition, data transmission using the non-return to zero on-off keying modulation format is demonstrated to achieve 60 Gbps/λ. The silica micro-rod resonator-based Kerr frequency comb light source …