Over a 53km turbulent free-space optical link we have shown data transmission up to 424Gbit/s. These results were enabled by plasmonic modulators offering bandwidths above 100GHz and were extended up to 774Gbit/s in fiber experiments.

A dual-sideband reception scheme for RF links providing up to 3 dB sensitivity improvement is introduced and tested to bridge 1400 m wireless distance between 160 Gbps fiber networks at an RF of 226 GHz.

Free-space optical satellite-earth links often operate at the SNR limit. We show that under low SNR conditions it is more favorable to operate at higher speeds with lower order modulation formats. This follows from the Shannon capacity limit formula where the transmission bandwidth has a linear impact, whereas the SNR has a logarithmic effect. In practice, bandwidth limitations from the hardware need to be considered making capacity maximization a joint optimization. Here we experimentally substantiate these findings by e.g., comparing two 128 Gbit/s signals - encoded either as DP 64 GBd 2 PAM or a DP 32 GBd 4 PAM signal. It is found that the 64 GBd 2 PAM performs better for the same bit-error rate. To facilitate highest speed operation we employ a packaged plasmonic modulator with a 3 dB bandwidth > 110 GHz. The plasmonic modulator also enabled us to send up to 160 GBd 2 PAM signals, achieving to the best of our knowledge the highest symbol rate in any free-space optical communication link. Reaching an achievable information rate of 276 Gbit/s. Even higher rates of 424 Gbit/s were achieved by employing a DP 128 GBd 4 PAM signal. This shows that once hardware bandwidth limitations come in place it is more favorable to increase the modulation complexity. Furthermore, we have shown that plasmonic organic hybrid modulators can withstand space radiation with only minor degradations. Lastly, the conditions during the experiment have been investigated and have been shown to constitute a worst-case scenario for earth-GEO feeder links.

Cryogenic quantum applications have a demand for an ever-higher number of interconnects and bandwidth. Photonic links are foreseen to offer data transfer with high bandwidth, low heat load, and low noise to enable the next-generation scalable quantum computing systems. However, they require high-speed and energy-efficient modulators operating at cryogenic temperatures for electro-optic signal conversion. Here, plasmonic organic electro-optic modulators operating at 4 K are demonstrated with a >100 GHz bandwidth, drive voltages as low as 96 mV, and a significant reduction in plasmonic propagation losses by over 40% compared to room temperature. Up to 160 Gbit/s and 256 Gbit/s cryogenic electro-optic signal conversion are demonstrated by performing data experiments using a plasmonic Mach-Zehnder modulator at around 1528 nm and a plasmonic ring-resonator modulator at around 1285 nm, respectively. This work shows that plasmonic modulators are ideally suited for future high-speed, scalable, and energy-efficient photonic interconnects in cryogenic environments.

Plasmonic modulators have been assessed for operation up to 200 GBaud in a turbulent 53 km free-space-optical link. They are shown to withstand space radiation and large temperature ranges making them ideal for space applications.

Resonant modulators encode electrical data onto wavelength-multiplexed optical carriers. Today, silicon microring modulators are perceived as promising to implement such links; however, they provide limited bandwidth and need thermal stabilization systems. Here we present plasmonic micro-racetrack modulators as a potential successor of silicon microrings: they are equally compact and compatible with complementary-metal–oxide–semiconductor-level driving voltages, but offer electro-optical bandwidths of 176 GHz, a 28 times improved stability against operating temperature changes and no self-heating effects. The temperature-resistant organic electro-optic material enables operation at 85 °C device temperature. We show intensity-modulated transmission of up to 408 Gbps at 12.3 femtojoules per bit with a single resonant modulator. Plasmonic micro-racetrack modulators offer a solution to encode high data rates (for example, the 1.6 Tbps envisioned by next-generation communications links) at a small footprint, with low power consumption and marginal, if no, temperature control.

A novel vertical incidence metamaterial enhanced graphene photodetector featuring a 200 nm spectral window and a setup limited bandwidth of 500 GHz is demonstrated. The photodetector has been tested for data transmission in an all plasmonic EOE-link offering unprecedented 250 GHz bandwidth.

A monolithically integrated plasmonic SiGe-BiCMOS electronic transmitter operating at 180 GBd is demonstrated. Such compact high-speed electronic-photonic integrated circuit (EPIC) transmitters are key components for future high-performance computing (HPC) and data center interconnects (DCI). © 2021 OCIS Codes: 130.4110, 130.3120

A high-speed and compact plasmonic organic racetrack modulator is shown to be orders of magnitude more robust against operating condition changes compared to resonant modulators based on the plasma dispersion effect while maintaining thermal tunability. Stable operation at 80°C is shown with no degradation. © 2022 Optica

The first transparent Optical-subTHz-Optical link providing record-high line-rates of 240 and 190 Gbit/s over distances from 5 to 115 m was recently demonstrated. The link has been based on a direct data-conversion from optical to subTHz using a > 500 GHz plasmonic Mach-Zehnder modulator. We discuss the potential of plasmonic devices in subTHz wireless links to efficiently bridge optical fiber networks.

We report on coherent transmission of beyond 100 GBd signaling based on plasmonic technology. Using dual-drive plasmonic-organic-hybrid I/Q modulator on silicon photonics platform, we demonstrate the successful transmission of 160-GBaud QPSK and 140-GBaud 16QAM modulations.

We summarize our experimental exploration of the capabilities of an ultrabroad-bandwidth plasmonic Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM), in an intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) system for short-reach optical transmission up to 10 km. We study modulation, transmission, and reception of ultrahigh-symbol-rate (up to 304 GBd) multi-level optical signals with two different signaling schemes: pulse amplitude modulation (PAM), with up to 8 amplitude levels and partial-response-encoded binary (polybinary) modulation with memory length up to 4. By mapping the performance to a concatenated soft-decision (SD) and hard-decision (HD) forward error correction (FEC) coding scheme, a net bitrate of 363.4 Gbit/s is possible with PAM-8 signaling and 279.0 Gbit/s with tetrabinary (polybinary) signaling after 10 km standard single-mode fiber transmission. Considering an HD-only coding scheme, a net bitrate of 318.0 Gbit/s is possible with PAM-6 and 277.1 Gbit/s with tetrabinary.

A transparent Optical-subTHz-Optical link providing record-high single line rates of 240 Gbit/s and 192 Gbit/s on a single optical carrier over distances from 5 to 115 m is demonstrated.Besides a direct mapping of the optical to a 230 GHz subTHz-carrier frequency by means of a uni-traveling carrier (UTC) photodiode, we demonstrate direct conversion of data from the subTHz domain back to the optical domain by a plasmonic modulator.It is shown that the subTHz-to-optical upconversion can even be performed at good quality without any electrical amplifiers.Finally, at the receiver, the local oscillator is employed to directly map the optical signal back to the electrical baseband within a coherent receiver.

Plasmonic PICs offer compact high-speed photonic and plasmonic components, enabling a new generation of scalable photonic system solutions. We explain the underlying technology, highlight key applications, review technology demonstrations, and discuss future opportunities.

We demonstrate an energy-efficient, 100-GHz plasmonic modulator operating at 4 K for beyond 128 GBd data modulation with ultra-low driving voltage of 0.1 V. High-speed components at cryogenic temperature are essential building blocks for scalable next-generation quantum computing systems.

OOK line rates of 220 Gbit/s and 408 Gbit/s 8PAM and transmission over 100 m are demonstrated with a resonant plasmonic racetrack modulator. The device requires low 0.6 Vp driver voltages, offers a bandwidth >110 GHz and on-chip losses of 1.0 dB.

We employ an ultrabroad-bandwidth plasmonic Mach-Zehnder modulator to demonstrate 10-km IM/DD transmission at a symbol rate of 304-GBd (AIR 293.3-Gbit/s, net 270.0-Gbit/s) realized with a poly-binary modulation scheme, and a line rate of 432-Gbit/s (AIR 383.6-Gbit/s, net 350.4-Gbit/s) using PAM-8.

We present reliability studies of plasmonic-organic-hybrid modulators for high-speed optical communications. By exclusion of oxygen and water, demanding thermal environments and high optical power levels can be tolerated.

This study demonstrates enhancement of in-device electro-optic activity via a series of theory-inspired organic electro-optic (OEO) chromophores based on strong (diarylamino)phenyl electron donating moieties. These chromophores are tuned to minimize trade-offs between molecular hyperpolarizability and optical loss. Hyper-Rayleigh scattering (HRS) measurements demonstrate that these chromophores, herein described as BAH, show >2-fold improvement in β versus standard chromophores such as JRD1, and approach that of the recent BTP and BAY chromophore families. Electric field poled bulk devices of neat and binary BAH chromophores exhibited significantly enhanced EO coefficients (r33) and poling efficiencies (r33/Ep) compared with state-of-the-art chromophores such as JRD1. The neat BAH13 devices with charge blocking layers produced very large poling efficiencies of 11.6 ± 0.7 nm2 V-2 and maximum r33 value of 1100 ± 100 pm V-1 at 1310 nm on hafnium dioxide (HfO2). These results were comparable to that of our recently reported BAY1 but with much lower loss (extinction coefficient, k), and greatly exceeding that of other previously reported OEO compounds. 3 : 1 BAH-FD : BAH13 blends showed a poling efficiency of 6.7 ± 0.3 nm2 V-2 and an even greater reduction in k. 1 : 1 BAH-BB : BAH13 showed a higher poling efficiency of 8.4 ± 0.3 nm2 V-2, which is approximately a 2.5-fold enhancement in poling efficiency vs. JRD1. Neat BAH13 was evaluated in plasmonic-organic hybrid (POH) Mach-Zehnder modulators with a phase shifter length of 10 μm and slot widths of 80 and 105 nm. In-device BAH13 achieved a maximum r33 of 208 pm V-1 at 1550 nm, which is ∼1.7 times higher than JRD1 under equivalent conditions.

The first transparent Optical-THz-Optical link providing record-high line-rates up to 240 and 190 Gbit/s over distances from 5 to 115m is demonstrated. The link is based on direct data-conversion from optical to sub-THz and vice-versa.