Micrometer-scale all-optical wavelength converter on silicon

We demonstrate a highly integrated micrometer-scale low-power wavelength converter based on the free-carrier dispersion effect in silicon. The conversion is achieved through all-optical modulation of a silicon ring resonator by use of modulated cw control light. The ring resonator has a radius of 5 mu m and a Q of similar to 10,000. Both inverted and noninverted modulation are achieved at a bit rate of 0.9 Gbits/s with a control power of 4.5 mW The scaling of the required control power for operation with respect to the characteristics of the ring resonator is established. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.