Ultra-compact amorphous silicon waveguide for wavelength conversion

In this work we demonstrate, for the first time, successful four wave mixing (FWM) based wavelength conversion of Binary Phase Shift Keyed (BPSK) and Quadrature Phase Shift Keyed (QPSK) signals, at 20 Gb/s bitrate, in a 1-mm long amorphous silicon waveguide. A maximum FWM-efficiency of -26 dB was achieved by employing a pump power of just 70 mW, establishing this technology as a contender for the development of ultra-compact, low power, silicon photonics wavelength converter. Bit Error Ratio (BER) measurements demonstrated successful conversion with less than 1 dB penalty level, for both BPSK and QPSK signals (at BER = 10-5)