Low-Noise Phase-sensitive Parametric Amplifiers Based on Integrated Silicon-Nitride-Waveguides for Optical Signal Processing

Low-noise optical amplification has been a long-lasting research topic in various fields including communication, metrology and quantum optics. Here we report optical signal processing at different wavelengths enabled by a low-noise optical phase-sensitive amplifier (PSA) using a single compact integrated silicon nitride photonic waveguide. For 10 Gbit/s non-return-to-zero optical signals with central wavelengths tuned in the telecommunication band, the waveguide-based PSA exhibits a gain of more than 10 dB and a noise figure of about 1.2 dB when the coupling losses are neglected. For a bit-error-rate level of 10(-9), penalties of less than 0.8 dB for all channels are observed after the signals propagating through the chip-based PSA, which may be due to the distortions in the few-mode waveguide. These experimental results generally agree with theoretical prediction and indicate that silicon-nitride-based PSAs are promising for the next generation of broadband optical signal processing and communication systems.

Automated summary

This paper reports a low-noise optical phase-sensitive amplifier (PSA) enabled by a single compact integrated silicon nitride photonic waveguide, which allows optical signal processing at different wavelengths. The experimental results show that silicon-nitride-based PSAs are promising for the next generation of broadband optical signal processing and communication systems.