On-chip Dispersive Phase Filters for Optical Processing of Periodic Signals

We develop a dispersive phase filter design framework suitable for compact integration using waveguide Bragg gratings (WBGs) in silicon. Our proposal is to utilize an equivalent “discrete” spectral phase filtering process, in which the original continuous quadratic spectral phase function of a group velocity dispersion (GVD) line is discretized and bounded in a modulo 2π basis. Through this strategy, we avoid the phase accumulation of the GVD line, leading to a significant reduction in device footprint (length) as compared to conventional GVD devices (e.g., using a linearly chirped WBG). The proposed design is validated through numerical simulations and proof-of-concept experiments. Specifically, using the proposed methodology, we demonstrate 2× pulse repetition-rate multiplication of a 10 GHz picosecond pulse train by dispersion-induced Talbot effect on a silicon chip.