Active On-Chip Dispersion Control Using a Tunable Silicon Bragg Grating

Active On-Chip Dispersion Control Using a Tunable Silicon Bragg Grating

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Actively controllable dispersion in on-chip photonic devices is challenging to implement compared with free space optical components where mechanical degrees of freedom can be employed.Here, we present a quest fryer method by which continuously tunable group delay control is achieved by modulating the refractive index profile of a silicon Bragg grating using thermo-optic effects.A simple thermal heater element is used to create tunable bushranger awning thermal gradients along the grating length, inducing chirped group delay profiles.Both effective blue and red chirp are realised using a single on-chip device over nanometre scale bandwidths.Group delay slopes are continuously tunable over a few ps/nm range from red to blue chirp, compatible with on-chip dispersion compensation for telecommunications picosecond pulse systems.