AlGaAs Microring Resonators for All-Optical Signal Processing

Abstract

Photonic integration and all-optical signal processing are promising solutions to the increasing demand for high-bandwidth and high-speed communication systems. III-V semiconductor materials, specially AlGaAs, have shown potentials for photonic integration and efficient nonlinear processes due to their low nonlinear absorption, flexibility at controlling the refractive index, and mature fabrication technology.

In this thesis, we report the designs of AlGaAs microring resonators optimized for efficient four-wave mixing. Four-wave mixing (FWM) is a nonlinear optical phenomenon which can be used to realize many optical signal processing operations such as optical wavelength conversion and optical time division multiplexing and demultiplexing. Our designed AlGaAs microring resonators are expected to have good optical confinement, transmission characteristics, and efficient coupling between the ring and waveguide.

Here we also present our fabrication efforts to fabricate the microring resonators device and the insights gained in the process. The microring resonators devices have a potential to be used in optical communication networks for all-optical signal processing operations.