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US 12,693,571 B2Granted
Tunable cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer structures
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsSaeed Fathololoumi, David Chak Wang Hui, Monireh Moayedi Pour Fard, Jacob Levy
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Cascaded Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (CMZI) structures comprising electrically resistive heaters provisioned across the stages so as to enable improved filter wavelength control. In embodiments, CMZI heater power supply control is made a linear function by scaling the number of heater elements between the stages in proportion with the magnitude of the arm differential (e.g., ΔL, 2ΔL) for the corresponding stage.
Claims15
An apparatus comprising:
- a first Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) structure having a first arm length differential;
- a second MZI structure having a second arm length differential that is a multiple of the first arm length differential;
- a first number of electrically resistive heater elements proximal to an arm of the first MZI structure, wherein the first number of electrically resistive heater elements are to dissipate power through Joule heating to modulate a phase difference associated with the first arm length differential through the thermo-optic effect;
- a second number of electrically resistive heater elements proximal to an arm of the second MZI structure, wherein the second number of electrically resistive heater elements are to dissipate power through Joule heating to modulate a phase difference associated with the second arm length differential through the thermo-optic effect, wherein the second number of heater elements is approximately equal to the first number of heater elements times the multiple, and wherein individual ones of the first and second number of resistive heater elements all have substantially the same resistance value.
1 more element
A cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer (CMZI) structure, wherein the CMZI structure comprises:
- a first Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) structure comprising:
- a first pair of optical waveguides with an optical path length difference of ΔL;
- and
- a plurality of first electrical resistors, wherein one or more of the first resistors, each having a first resistance, are adjacent to each of the first pair of optical waveguides and are to dissipate power through Joule heating to modulate a phase difference associated with the optical path length difference of the first pair of optical waveguides through the thermo-optic effect;
- and
- a second MZI structure comprising:
- a second pair of optical waveguides with an optical path length difference of twice ΔL;
- and
- a plurality of second electrical resistors, wherein two or more of the second resistors, each having approximately the first resistance, are adjacent to each of the second pair of optical waveguides and are to dissipate power through Joule heating to modulate a phase difference associated with the optical path length difference of the second pair of optical waveguides through the thermo-optic effect.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.