Integrated silicon optical amplifier with reduced residual pump

Patent · Tue May 16 00:00:00 EDT 2023

OSTI ID:1998380

Lentine, Anthony L.; Gehl, Michael; Rakich, Peter; Gertler, Shai; Otterstrom, Nils

An optical amplifier device employing a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) that reduces the amount of residual pump power in the optical output of the amplifier is disclosed. The MZI amplifier employs two geometrically linear optical amplifier arms or two multi-spatial-mode racetrack optical amplifiers to amplify a signal with a pumping beam, with the signal output port having extremely low levels of residual pump power. The MZI optical amplifier is a silicon photonic integrated circuit, with all optical amplifiers, couplers, phase shifters, and optical attenuators formed of silicon photonic integrated circuit elements. The MZI optical amplifier may include one, two, or three MZI stages, and multiple MZI optical amplifiers may be used in parallel or sequentially to achieve higher overall signal gain or power. The MZI optical amplifier may employ Brillouin-scattering-based amplifiers, Raman-based integrated waveguide optical amplifiers, or Erbium-doped integrated waveguide optical amplifiers.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• DOE Contract Number: NA0003525
• Assignee: National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC (Albuquerque, NM); YALE UNIVERSITY (New Haven, CT)
• Patent Number(s): 11,652,330
• Application Number: 17/098,577
• OSTI ID: 1998380
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English