SiGe-Driven Hybrid-Integrated Silicon Photonic Link Using Optical-Domain Equalization

We report 50- and 60-Gb/s hybrid-integrated optical links in the O-band with CMOS photonic components driven by silicon-germanium ICs using optical-domain feed-forward equalization. The link includes a segmented-electrode Mach-Zehnder modulator and a Ge photodetector that provide high bandwidths and the potential for tight integration with control and monitoring electronics. The combination of these features enables the demonstration of a 60-Gb/s AC-coupled link and a 50-Gb/s DC-coupled link with bit error rates below 10-12 without the use of forward-error correction codes. This result provides a promising path toward extending speeds in latency sensitive optical links.