National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC

The Texas A&M University System

Alexander Ruyack

Darwin K Serkland

Michael Wood

Alejandro J Grine

Bryan James Kaehr

Andrew E Hollowell

Gregory M Peake

Sam Palermo

A photonics transceiver is described herein, wherein the photonics transceiver exhibits improved areal bandwidth density and improved energy per bit consumption relative to conventional photonics transceivers. The photonics transceiver achieves an areal bandwidth density of at least 5 Tbps/mmwith an energy consumption of less than 500 fJ/bit (sum of energy consumed for both a transmitted bit and a received bit). The photonics transceiver is a multi-chip module, where chips in the multi-chip module are tightly integrated with one another. The multi-chip module includes light source, photodetector, photonics, and control/logic chips. The photonics chip includes transparent conducting oxide integrated optical modulators and multiplexers and demultiplexers based on MEMS-tunable optical ring resonators.

Multi-chip photonics transceiver

A microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-tunable optical ring resonator is described herein. The ring resonator includes a resonator ring and a tuner ring, along with one or more springs. The springs may be internal or external, i.e., either within or outside the areal footprint of the resonator ring and the tuner ring. The one or more springs are configured to displace the tuner ring from the resonator ring by a desired gap based upon a desired resonant wavelength of the resonator ring. Tuning is implemented by applying a voltage to the ring resonator, with motion of the tuner ring causing a corresponding change in the effective index of the resonator ring. As the ring resonator is essentially a capacitive device, it draws very little power once tuning is achieved.

MEMS-tunable optical ring resonator

Growing community of inventors

Albuquerque, NM, United States of America

Alexander Ruyack