Search

On-chip optical neural networks (ONNs) have recently emerged as an attractive hardware accelerator for deep learning applications, characterized by high computing density, low latency, and compact size. As these networks rely heavily on massive matrix multiplication, photonic computing cores for matrix computation become crucial components for on-chip ONNs, which harness the degree of freedoms (DOFs) in photonics including space, wavelength and mode dimensions. However, previous photonic computing devices have not fully utilized the orthogonality and the conversion characteristic of the waveguide modes, which as we show here, allows for the simultaneous parallel computing of several independent matrix-vector multiplications within the same device. In this work, we propose an inverse-designed photonic computing core for parallel matrix-vector multiplication. The matrices are implemented through a mode conversion process, where the input fundamental modes are simultaneously converted into several orthogonal output modes. Specifically, we target the complex-valued conversion matrices between input and output modes and inversely design the dielectric distribution within the device to achieve parallel matrix-vector multiplication. As a demonstration, the proposed photonic computing core supports simultaneous parallel computing of two independent matrix-vector multiplications, with an ultra-compact footprint and high computing precision (relative error < 8%) at 1550 nm wavelength. The inverse-designed photonic computing devices hold great potential for high-performance on-chip ONNs with low energy consumption and high computing density.

The ability to manipulate cavity resonant modes is of critical importance in laser physics and applications. By exploiting the parity time (PT) symmetry, we propose and experimentally realize a single-mode FP laser with improved output power and high-speed modulation have been demonstrated. The proposed PT symmetric laser consists of two coupled structurally identical FP resonators. The gain and loss in two FP resonators can be manipulated independently by changing the injection currents. In the PT symmetric FP laser, single-mode operation is accomplished by selectively breaking of PT symmetry depending solely on the relation between gain-loss and coupling. Single-mode lasing with output power of 1.7 dBm and a sidemode suppression ratio (SMSR) exceeding 24 dB is demonstrated. The 3 dB bandwidth of 7.9 GHz is achieved and clear eye-openings were obtained for 2.5 Gbps and 10Gbps NRZ operation over 10 km single-mode fibers. Furthermore, the PT symmetry breaking is experimentally confirmed with measured loss and coupling coefficient of two FP resonators. The influence of cavity length, facet reflectivity, and electrical isolation between two P-side electrodes on the side mode suppression ratio and output optical power is also been demonstrated, paving the way for further improvement of the PT symmetric FP laser., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

We present a digitized adjoint method for realizing efficient inverse design of "digital" subwavelength nanophotonic devices. We design a single-mode 3-dB power divider and a dual-mode demultiplexer to demonstrate the digitized adjoint method for single-object and dual-object optimizations, respectively. The optimization comprises three stages, a first stage of continuous variation for an "analog" pattern, a second stage of forced permittivity biasing for a "quasi-digital" pattern, and a third stage for a multi-level digital pattern. Compared with conventional brute-force method, the proposed digitized adjoint method can improve the design efficiency by about 5 times, and the performance optimization can reach approximately the same level using the ternary pattern. The digitized adjoint method takes the advantages of adjoint sensitivity analysis and digital subwavelength structure and creates a new way for efficient and high-performance design of compact digital subwavelength nanophotonic devices. This method could overcome the efficiency bottleneck of the brute-force method that is restricted by the number of pixels of a digital pattern and improve the device performance by extending a conventional binary pattern to a multi-level one, which may be attractive for inverse design of large-scale digital nanophotonic devices.

To analyze a homogeneous weakly coupled multicore fiber (WC-MCF) based transmission system via simulation, we propose an efficient (fast and accurate) WC-MCF's channel model, which can describe the propagation effects including attenuation, walk-off, chromatic dispersion, self-phase modulation (SPM), and especially the frequency-dependent inter-core crosstalk (XT). We speed up the simulation with two orders of magnitude by simplifying the XT's calculation. On one hand, the calculation step size can be greatly increased by utilizing a new XT's coupling matrix. On the other hand, the calculation of XT can be further accelerated by down-sampling XT's coupling matrix in frequency domain. The XT power and average occurrence distance should be set manually based on the existing XT model to describe the frequency-dependent XT the same as a real WC-MCF. We numerically and experimentally observed that XT's de-correlation bandwidth decreases with relative time delay (RTD) by fractional linear function. The range of validity of the proposed channel model is also discussed with different walk-off and coupling strength. We believe the proposed efficient channel model can provide great help for analysis and optimization of homogeneous WC-MCF based optical communication systems., Comment: 9 pages,12 figures

This paper reports the demonstration of high-speed PAM-4 transmission using a 1.5-{\mu}m single-mode vertical cavity surface emitting laser (SM-VCSEL) over multicore fiber with 7 cores over different distances. We have successfully generated up to 70 Gbaud 4-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) signals with a VCSEL in optical back-to-back, and transmitted 50 Gbaud PAM-4 signals over both 1-km dispersion-uncompensated and 10-km dispersion-compensated in each core, enabling a total data throughput of 700 Gbps over the 7-core fiber. Moreover, 56 Gbaud PAM-4 over 1-km has also been shown, whereby unfortunately not all cores provide the required 3.8 $\times$ 10 $^{-3}$ bit error rate (BER) for the 7% overhead-hard decision forward error correction (7% OH HDFEC). The limited bandwidth of the VCSEL and the adverse chromatic dispersion of the fiber are suppressed with pre-equalization based on accurate end-to-end channel characterizations. With a digital post-equalization, BER performance below the 7% OH-HDFEC limit is achieved over all cores. The demonstrated results show a great potential to realize high-capacity and compact short-reach optical interconnects for data centers., Comment: 7 pages, accepted to publication in 'Journal of Lightwave Technology (JLT)

We experimentally demonstrate the impact of inter-core crosstalk in multicore fibers on 56Gbaud PAM-4 signal quality after 2.5-km transmission over a weakly-coupled and uncoupled sevencore fibers, revealing the crosstalk dependence on carrier central wavelength in range of 1540-1560 nm., Comment: 3 pages, 44th European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC 2018), Rome, Italy, 2018

We numerically discussed crosstalk impacts on homogeneous weakly-coupled multicore fiber based intensity modulation/direct-detection (IM/DD) systems taking into account mean crosstalk power fluctuation, walk-off between cores, laser frequency offset, and laser linewidth., Comment: 3 pages, 11 figures

We experimentally characterize photon leakage from 112Gbps data channels in both non-trench and trench-assistant 7-core fibers, demonstrating telecom compatibility for QKD co-existing with high-speed data transmission when a proper core/wavelength allocation is carried out., Comment: 3 pages, 44th European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC 2018), Rome, Italy, 2018

We experimentally demonstrate a 28-Gbaud 16-QAM self-homodyne digital radio-over- 33.6km-7-core-fiber system with entropy coding for mobile fronthaul, achieving error-free carrier aggregation of 330 100-MHz 4096-QAM 5G-new-radio channels and 921 100-MHz QPSK 5G-new-radio channels with CPRI-equivalent data rate up to 3.73-Tbit/s., Comment: 3 pages, 44th European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC 2018), Rome, Italy, 2018

We experimentally demonstrate a net-rate 503.61-Gbit/s discrete multitone (DMT) transmission over 10-km 7-core fiber with 1.5-\mu m single mode VCSEL, where low-complexity kernelrecursive-least-squares algorithm is employed for nonlinear channel equalization., Comment: 3 pages, 44th European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC 2018), Rome, Italy, 2018

Kernel adaptive filtering (KAF) is proposed for nonlinearity-tolerant optical direct detection. For 7x128Gbit/s PAM4 transmission over 33.6km 7-core-fiber, KAF only needs 10 equalizer taps to reach KP4-FEC limit (BER@2.2e-4), whereas decision-feedback-equalizer needs 43 equalizer taps to reach HD-FEC limit (BER@3.8e-3)., Comment: 3 pages, 44th European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC 2018), Rome, Italy, 2018

We investigate the evolution of decorrelation bandwidth of inter core crosstalk (IC-XT) in homogeneous weakly coupled multicore fibers (WC-MCFs). The modified mode-coupled equations (MCEs) are numerically solved by combining the fourth order Runge-Kutta method and compound Simpson integral method. It can be theoretically and numerically observed that the decorrelation bandwidth of IC-XT decreases with transmission distance by fractional linear function. The evolution rule of IC-XT's decorrelation bandwidth is further confirmed by experiments, which can be used as an evaluation criterion for channel model. Finally, we propose a new channel model with the coupling matrix of IC-XT generated automatically by phase transfer function (PTF), which is in good agreement with the above evaluation criterion. We believe the proposed channel model can provide a good simulation platform for homogeneous WC-MCF based communication systems., Comment: 19 pages,14 figures

Capacity is the eternal pursuit for communication systems due to the overwhelming demand of bandwidth hungry applications. As the backbone infrastructure of modern communication networks, the optical fiber transmission system undergoes a significant capacity growth over decades by exploiting available physical dimensions (time, frequency, quadrature, polarization and space) of the optical carrier for multiplexing. For each dimension, stringent orthogonality must be guaranteed for perfect separation of independent multiplexed signals. To catch up with the ever-increasing capacity requirement, it is therefore interesting and important to develop new multiplexing methodologies relaxing the orthogonal constraint thus achieving better spectral efficiency and more flexibility of frequency reuse. Inspired by the idea of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme, here we propose a digital domain power division multiplexed (PDM) transmission technology which is fully compatible with current dual polarization (DP) coherent optical communication system. The coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CO-OFDM) modulation has been employed owing to its great superiority on high spectral efficiency, flexible coding, ease of channel estimation and robustness against fiber dispersion. And a PDM-DP-CO-OFDM has been theoretically and experimentally demonstrated with 100Gb/s wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission over 1440km standard single mode fibers (SSMFs). Two baseband quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) OFDM signals are overlaid together with different power levels. After IQ modulation, polarization multiplexing and long distance fiber transmission, the PDM-DP-CO-OFDM signal has been successfully recovered in the typical polarization diversity coherent receiver by successive interference cancellation (SIC) algorithm., Comment: 9 pages,9 figures

Pulse coding is an effective method to overcome the trade-off between signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and spatial resolution in optical-fiber sensing systems based on optical time-domain reflectometry (OTDR). However, the coding gain has not been yet fully exploited. We provide a comprehensive theoretical analysis and experimental validation of the sampling criteria for correlation-coded OTDR, showing that the coding gain can be further improved by harnessing the oversampling. Moreover, the bandwidth-limited feature of the photodetector can also be utilized to select the sampling rate so that additional SNR enhancement is obtained. We believe this principle could be applied to any practical OTDR-based optical-fiber sensing technology, and serve to update existing systems based on correlation-coded OTDR in a straightforward manner at a relatively low cost., Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures

Physics phenomena of multi-soliton complexes have enriched the life of dissipative solitons in fiber lasers. By developing a birefringence-enhanced fiber laser, we report the first experimental observation of group-velocity-locked vector soliton (GVLVS) molecules. The birefringence-enhanced fiber laser facilitates the generation of GVLVSs, where the two orthogonally polarized components are coupled together to form a multi-soliton complex. Moreover, the interaction of repulsive and attractive forces between multiple pulses binds the particle-like GVLVSs together in time domain to further form compound multi-soliton complexes, namely GVLVS molecules. By adopting the polarization-resolved measurement, we show that the two orthogonally polarized components of the GVLVS molecules are both soliton molecules supported by the strongly modulated spectral fringes and the double-humped intensity profiles. Additionally, GVLVS molecules with various soliton separations are also observed by adjusting the pump power and the polarization controller.

A novel Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) system is proposed using intensity-modulated optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing probe signal and direct detection (IM-DD-OOFDM) without frequency sweep operation. The influence of peak to average power ratio (PAPR) of OFDM probe signal on the recovery of Brillouin gain spectrum (BGS) is analyzed in theory and experiment. The complex BGS is reconstructed by channel estimation algorithm and Brillouin frequency shift (BFS) is located by curve fitting of intensity spectrum. The IM-DD-OOFDM BOTDA is demonstrated experimentally with 25m spatial resolution over 2 km standard single mode fiber., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

We present a detailed theoretical analysis on image transmission via a single multimode fiber (MMF). A single MMF imaging model is developed to study the light wave propagation from the light source to the camera, by using free-space Fourier optics theory and mode-coupling theory. A mathematical expression is obtained for the complete single MMF imaging system, which is further validated by image-transmission simulations. Our model is believed to be the first theoretical model to describe the complete MMF imaging system based on the transmission of individual modes. Therefore, this model is robust and capable of analyzing MMF image transmission under specific mode-coupling conditions. We use our model to study bending-induced image blur in single-MMF image transmission, and the result has found a good agreement with that of existing experimental studies. These should provide important insights into future MMF imaging system developments.

Vectorial nature of dissipative solitons (DSs) with high repetition rates is studied for the first time in a normal-dispersion fiber laser. Despite the fact that the formed DSs are strongly chirped and the repetition rate is greater than 100 MHz, polarization locked and polarization rotating group velocity locked vector DSs can be formed under 129.3 MHz fundamental mode-locking and 258.6 MHz harmonic mode-locking of the fiber laser, respectively. The two orthogonally polarized components of these vector DSs possess distinctly different central wavelengths and travel together at the same group velocity in the laser cavity, resulting in a gradual spectral edge and small steps on the optical spectra, which can be considered as an auxiliary indicator of the group velocity locked vector DSs., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

The dynamics of dissipative solitons (DSs) are explored in a high repetition rate normal-dispersion erbium-doped fiber laser for the first time. Despite of the high fundamental repetition rate of 129 MHz and thus the low pulse energy, a DS train with a dechirped pulse width of 418 fs, period-doubling of single and dual DSs, as well as 258 MHz 2nd-order harmonic mode-locking of DSs can be observed in the fiber laser with increasing pump power and appropriate settings. A transmitted semiconductor saturable absorber and a wavelength division multiplexer/isolator/tap hybrid module are employed to simplify the laser configuration, thus not only increasing the repetition rate, but also enhancing the stability and robustness of the fiber laser due to the commercial availability of all the components., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures

Rapid progress in passively mode-locked fiber lasers is currently driven by the recent discovery of vector feature of mode-locking pulses, namely, the group velocity-locked vector solitons, the phase locked vector solitons, and the high-order vector solitons. Those vector solitons are fundamentally different from the previously known scalar solitons. Here, we report a fiber laser where the mode-locked pulse evolves as a vector soliton in the strong birefringent segment and is transformed into a regular scalar soliton after the polarizer within the laser cavity. The existence of solutions in a polarization-dependent cavity comprising a periodic combination of two distinct nonlinear waves is novel and likely to be applicable to various other nonlinear systems. For very large local birefringence, our laser approaches the working regime of vector soliton lasers, while it approaches scalar soliton fiber lasers under the conditions of very small birefringence., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures

We propose and experimentally demonstrate the generation of pseudo-high-order group velocity locked vector solitons (GVLVS) in a fiber laser using a SESAM as the mode locker. With the help of an external all-fiber polarization resolved system, a GVLVS with a two-humped pulse along one polarization while a single-humped pulse along the orthogonal polarization could be obtained. The phase difference between the two humps is 180 degree., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures