A 100-MHz-bandwidth multichannel instrument-on-chip for noninvasive light monitoring in photonic circuits by means of the impedance sensing of the waveguide (WG) conductance variation is presented. The low-noise front-end allows accessing the WG conductance with very high sensitivity and tracking its variation upon changes of the photon flux with a resolution better than 10 pS, i.e., down to-30 dBm in optical intensity. Each electronic chain features a capacitive-feedback amplifier with a bias-handling network based on subthreshold transistors, showing-50-dBc harmonic distortion at up to few nanoamperes of input leakage current and double-balanced square-wave demodulators incorporating a low-pass limiter. To downscale the area consumption, four 8× multiplexers have been designed to address a total of 32 different optical probes, featuring a 4× MOS multiplexer cell to drop out off-phase spurious injections. The ASIC opens the way to multipoint monitoring and reconfiguration in photonic systems with many sensing sites, demonstrating the suitability of this solution for the closed-loop control of complex photonic circuits.

Impedance-Sensing CMOS Chip for Noninvasive Light Detection in Integrated Photonics

CICCARELLA, PIETRO;CARMINATI, MARCO;FERRARI, GIORGIO;GRILLANDA, STEFANO;MORICHETTI, FRANCESCO;MELLONI, ANDREA IVANO;SAMPIETRO, MARCO
2016-01-01

Abstract

A 100-MHz-bandwidth multichannel instrument-on-chip for noninvasive light monitoring in photonic circuits by means of the impedance sensing of the waveguide (WG) conductance variation is presented. The low-noise front-end allows accessing the WG conductance with very high sensitivity and tracking its variation upon changes of the photon flux with a resolution better than 10 pS, i.e., down to-30 dBm in optical intensity. Each electronic chain features a capacitive-feedback amplifier with a bias-handling network based on subthreshold transistors, showing-50-dBc harmonic distortion at up to few nanoamperes of input leakage current and double-balanced square-wave demodulators incorporating a low-pass limiter. To downscale the area consumption, four 8× multiplexers have been designed to address a total of 32 different optical probes, featuring a 4× MOS multiplexer cell to drop out off-phase spurious injections. The ASIC opens the way to multipoint monitoring and reconfiguration in photonic systems with many sensing sites, demonstrating the suitability of this solution for the closed-loop control of complex photonic circuits.
2016
Integrated photonics; light power monitor; microsensors; multichannel lock-in; silicon photonics; Electrical and Electronic Engineering
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/1009832
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