On-Chip OSNR Monitoring with Silicon Photonics Transparent Detector

Non-invasive integrated detectors, named contactless integrated photonic probe (CLIPP), are employed to demonstrate on-chip noise-independent power monitoring of optical channels and in-band optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) measurement. The proposed technique is based on a two-step lock-in demodulation of optical signals that are suitably labeled with low-modulation-index labels. We demonstrate OSNR measurement from 8 up to 27 dB/0.1 nm on 10-Gb/s ON-OFF keying signals with a power level ranging from -25 up to -15 dBm. This approach provides a promising tool for the monitoring of channels in reconfigurable optical networks with flexible channel allocation strategy, where the small channel separation makes the measurement of the in-band OSNR challenging.