Silicon-on-insulator-based energy-efficient one-hot code generation

Abstract

4-bit one-hot code encoder with ultra-low power consumption based on the cascaded silicon opto-mechanical microring resonators (MRRs) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. By inputting low pump powers, the nonlinear effects in the free-hanging MRRs could be significantly aroused, in order to shift the device transmission spectra. Consequently, the output codes of the ring through-port and drop-port could be manipulated by controlling the input encoding powers. In the experiment, one-hot code is successfully generated by utilizing three cascaded free-standing microrings. The required optical power is as low as −7.2 dBm. To the best of our knowledge, the required encoding power of the proposed optical encoder is the lowest among the on-chip MRR-based optical encoders. Furthermore, the other important feature of the optical encoder is the extensible structure. Namely, any 2N-bit one-hot code can be obtained by using N opto-mechanical MRRs and an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). The silicon-based optical encoder has many significant applications in integrated optical communication chips with various features of ultra-low power, flexibly scalable ability, compact size and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-compatibility.