Chromatic dispersion compensation in a ring resonator wavelength router

Abstract

Reconfigurable architectures based on bi-dimensional arrays of integrated ring-resonators (RRs), also known as resonant routers (ReRs), are good candidates for implementing advanced routing and switching operations in both WDM and access optical networks. ReRs provide high flexibility, full reconfigurability and the capability of handling many WDM optical channels in small footprint devices. In this contribution, we demonstrate experimentally that the bandwidth of a ReR can be significantly narrowed with respect to the signal bandwidth, while corrupting neither the signal quality nor the crosstalk between routed channels. To this aim, a small frequency detuning between the signal carrier and the ReRpsilas frequency response is introduced. In this condition, the frequency chirp provided by the RRs dispersion can also be exploited to make the transmitted signals more robust against fiber chromatic dispersion. The routing of two intensity modulated 2.5 Gbit/s and 10 Gbit/s NRZ channels through a 2times2 integrated ReR with 4 GHz bandwidth is reported and the signal quality after propagation through several spans of optical fiber is evaluated.