Boston Chapter of the IEEE Photonics Society

Abstract:  Infinera Corporation is the industry leader in large-scale photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology and was the first to commercialize practical large-scale PICs. Their photonic integrated circuits have been enabling technology behind over $2B in PIC-based networking product sales. As an example, their large-scale DWDM transmitter PICs deployed in telecommunications networks integrate tunable lasers, electro-absorption modulators, variable optical attenuators, photodetectors, arrayed waveguide gratings, and semiconductor optical amplifiers for 100Gb/s applications. More recent commercial devices include 500 Gb/s 10-wavelength, polarization multiplexed, monolithically integrated, InP coherent QPSK transmitter and receiver PICs integrating >600 functions on a pair of InP-based chips. In addition to the device elements mentioned above, these QPSK PICs also incorporate functional devices appropriate for coherent communications such as Mach Zehnder modulators and phase adjusters.  In this this presentation, we will share Infinera’s PIC integration product development activities and provide a review of field reliability of large scale photonic integrated circuits.

Biography:  Dr. Vikrant Lal received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India, Masters in electrical engineering from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Maryland, College Park, and Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, in 1999, 2001, and 2006, respectively. As a graduate student at UCSB he designed and demonstrated monolithically integrated tunable laser and SOA-MZI devices, which were among the most complex photonic integrated circuits at the time. He is currently the Director of Advanced Development in the Optical Integrated Circuit Group at Infinera where he has been working on the development of key components and processes for Infinera’s commercially deployed 500Gb/s Photonic Integrated Circuits. He has authored/co-authored over 50 publications in journals and conferences, and has been the co-author on 3 US patents.