Monolithic cointegration of electronics and photonics in the same silicon die is expected to enable a new realm of high-performance electro-optical systems for telecommunications, automotive, datacenter and sensing applications. As an alternative to integrating photonic devices into well-established microelectronic technologies, in this paper we report on the integration of CMOS electronic circuits in a commercial Silicon Photonics technology. Transistors with a threshold voltage of 1.84V, a gain factor of 4 μA/V2 and an Early voltage of 35V have been obtained by using the same masks as the photonic layer, without any additional technological steps in a truly zero-change paradigm. The paper reports a first application of this novel approach, showing time-multiplexed control of a 16-to-1 optical router enabled by an on-chip analog multiplexer.
Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy is a well-established non-linear optical technique for label-free identification of biochemical components in cells and tissues. In this contribution, we present broadband SRS microscopy with differential multichannel-lock in detection
Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy is a powerful technique for label-free identification of molecules based on their intrinsic vibrational spectrum. We present a novel approach to broadband SRS microscopy based on a recently developed balanced low-noise integrated-circuit multichannel lock-in amplifier with 10-μs integration time and 32 channels working in parallel, enabling multiplex SRS detection at speed faster than one hyperspectral frame per second. The system is powered by a narrowband Stokes pulse at 1040 nm and a broadband (approx. 500 cm^-1) pump pulse generated by a home-built low-noise optical parametric oscillator with up to 100-mW average power, covering the whole C-H stretching band. We measure stimulated Raman loss on the broadband pump pulse employing an in-line balanced detection approach to suppress the laser fluctuations and achieve close to shot-noise-limited sensitivity. We will show the system performances in high-resolution cell imaging.
We report on the use of programmable silicon photonic meshes of thermally tuneable interferometers to manipulate dynamically guided-wave and free-space optical beams on a chip through arbitrary linear transformations. Several applications are presented, including automatic reconstruction and unscrambling of mixed optical modes; forming and steering of free-space optical beams; coupling of free-space beams from arbitrary directions of arrival to single-mode waveguides; phase front reconstruction and beaming through scattering media. Automatic self-configuration of the meshes is achieved by exploiting built-in transparent monitors, beam labelling and thermal crosstalk cancellation strategies, enabling scalability to photonic meshes with a large number of interferometers.
Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have been demonstrated as a promising technology to implement flexible and hitless reconfigurable devices for telecom, datacom and optical interconnect applications. However, the complexity scaling of such devices is raising novel needs related to their control systems, and the automatic calibration, reconfiguration and operation of these complex architectures both during manufacturing and in service is still an open issue.
In this contribution, we report our recent achievements on the automatic hitless tuning of a telecommunication-graded filter operating in the L band, fabricated on a commercial foundry Silicon Photonics (SiP) run. A novel channel labeling strategy is used to automatically identify the desired channel within a Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) through a FPGA-embedded closed-loop control algorithm.
The photonic architecture consists of a hitless third order Micro Ring Resonator (MRR) filter with 8 nm Free Spectral Range (FSR), integrating transparent detectors (ContactLess Integrated Photonic Probes - CLIPP) as power monitors and thermooptic actuators. Transparent detectors enable to control the input/output port of the filter without introducing any loss to the WDM channel comb. Hitless operation is achieved through a pair of switchable Mach-Zehnder interferometers used as input/output couplers of the MRR filter. The fabricated device has a 3 dB bandwidth of 40.7 GHz and provides a through-port in-band isolation of 23 dB and a drop port isolation of 25 dB at 50 GHz spacing from the dropped channel. Hitless reconfiguration is achieved with more than 30 dB isolation during channel selection.
The automatic tuning and locking technique is based on the use of a pilot tone generated locally at the node site and applied as a low frequency (few kHz), small modulation index (< 8%), amplitude modulation on the channel to be added to the network. The effectiveness and robustness of the automatic controller for tuning and stabilization of the filter is demonstrated by showing that no significant bit-error rate (BER) degradation is observed in an adjacent channel while the filter is being reconfigured. In addition, the convergence of the algorithm is shown to require only few tens of iterations, each one requiring a few milliseconds.
The FPGA-embedded control technique together with the compactness provided by SiP meets the integration requirements for high capacity networks and pluggable modules. In addition, the filter unit can be cascaded with other units to realize a multichannel reconfigurable add-drop architecture operating on several wavelengths at the same time with complete independency.
We demonstrate non-invasive light observation in silicon photonics with a ContactLess Integrated Photonics Probe
(CLIPP), neither introducing appreciable perturbations of the optical field nor requiring photon tapping from the
waveguide. Light monitoring with sensitivity down to -30 dBm, across 40 dB dynamic range, in few tens of microseconds,
on TE and TM polarizations, and on monomode and multimode waveguides is achieved. Moreover, we show wavelength
tuning, locking and swapping of high-Q resonators assisted by the CLIPP that is integrated inside the microring. CLIPP
readout and feedback control is managed by a CMOS microelectronic circuit bridged to the silicon photonic chip.
KEYWORDS: Amplifiers, Resistance, Field programmable gate arrays, Signal to noise ratio, Signal generators, Electrodes, Linear filtering, Signal detection, Capacitance, Analog electronics
Lab-on-a-chip systems have been attracting a growing attention for the perspective of miniaturization and portability of
bio-chemical assays. Here we present a the design and characterization of a miniaturized, USB-powered, self-contained,
2-channel instrument for impedance sensing, suitable for label-free tracking and real-time detection of cells flowing in
microfluidic channels. This original circuit features a signal generator based on a direct digital synthesizer, a
transimpedance amplifier, an integrated square-wave lock-in coupled to a Σ▵ ADC converter, and a digital processing
platform. Real-time automatic peak detection on two channels is implemented in a FPGA. System functionality has been
tested with an electronic resistance modulator to simulate 1% impedance variation produced by cells, reaching a time
resolution of 50μs (enabling a count rate of 2000 events/s) with an applied voltage as low as 200mV. Biological
experiments have been carried out counting yeast cells. Statistical analysis of events is in agreement with the expected
amplitude and time distributions. 2-channel yeast counting has been performed with concomitant dielectrophoretic cell
separation, showing that this novel and ultra compact sensing system, thanks to the selectivity of the lock-in detector, is
compatible with other AC electrical fields applied to the device.
The Correlation Spectrum Analyzer, thanks to the presence of two independent acquisition channels, has
demonstrated to reach very high performance in measuring noise spectra and to be extremely flexible in adapting to
different devices under test (DUT) in term of impedance values, of flowing standing current, of DC applied voltage
and of the physical quantity to be measured, either current or voltage. In addition, it can selectively extract the noise
contribution of a specific current flow in multi-electrodes devices. The paper will briefly highlights these features
together with the influence of the DUT characteristics, such as its impedance to ground and the cross-impedance
between the two electrodes connected to the instrument input ports, in determining the ultimate limits in the
performance of the instrument in terms of its sensitivity, its precision and its spectral extension. A practical
realisation for measurements made with an AFM especially modified for correlation investigations is also
commented.
The progress in the field of organic photodetectors has recently led to the development of very fast and efficient devices, but their spectral sensitivity is mainly limited to the visible, without covering the regions of the spectrum of greater interest for telecommunications. One of the major issues when dealing with long wavelength organic photodetectors is the usually poor environmental stability of low bandgap organic semiconductors. A possible exception to this scenario is represented by coordination complexes with organic ligands. We employ as photosensitive materials transition metal dithiolene and dioxolene complexes which combine high thermal and photochemical stabilities with high molar extinction coefficients in the near infrared. Taking advantage of the broad tuning of electronic absorption spectra which can be exerted by changing the oxidation state of the complexes, we develop planar metal-semiconductor-metal phostodetectors which are spectrally matched to the optical fiber windows and which can detect light pulses with repetition rates in the range of hundreds of kbit/s.
This investigation demonstrates the existence of organic materials of potential telecom interest and that the detection of infrared light pulses is feasible, thus representing a first step toward organic photodetectors for telecommunications.
A new class of photodetectors, whose active material is an organic semiconductor, has been developed. Thanks to the ease of deposition on any dielectric surface, the device may be built directly on the cleaved surface of an optical fiber, therefore realizing an on-fiber-detector (OFD). The photodetector is based on an organic semiconductor belonging to a new general class of neutral dithiolenes deposited onto a quartz substrate with microlithographically defined gold electrodes so to realize a metal-semiconductor-metal surface structure. First experimental results on a photodiode made of (monoreduced imidazolidine-2,4,5-trithione) having peak responsivity at 1014nm, have shown a time response down to 100microseconds, at present limited by the leakage current noise due to the poorly rectifying contacts. Differently from the vast majority of organic semiconductor materials, dithiolenes have shown extremely high chemical and thermal stability. The photoresponse of the dithiolenes in the liquid phase is shown to be wavelength selective with an absorption peak about 150nm wide that can be chemically tailored so to shift from almost 1000nm to 1700nm. Experimental measurements to prove that the absorption property is maintained in the solid state also at wavelengths around 1500nm, thus covering with a photodetector the spectrum of possible telecom applications, are under way.
The paper describes the use of noise current analysis to sense variations of the microscopic conduction process in organic Light Emitting Diodes and to track their evolution through time. The monitoring of current fluctuations has been made both in time and frequency domain and is of great value when one wants to correlate the conduction properties of the charge carriers and the changes in current flow with the corresponding changes in the microscopic morphology of the organic layers. The method reveals itself to be very effective also in sensing the initial state and the growth of catastrophic degradation of oLEDs in large advance with respect to current monitoring or other techniques. Microscopic damages within the device, as a result of microshorts and/or thermal breakdown, are shown to reveal a neat increase of the white noise component of about three orders of magnitude in the power spectral density, that can therefore be detected with very good time precision. This would allow to study the sources that may give reason of degradation, through structural or spectroscopic investigations for example, before the microscopic damages have sum up to a visible and irreversible macroscopic failure.
In the framework of trap-free steady-state space-charge-limited single-carrier currents, exact equations are derived for the evaluation of arbitrary field-dependent mobility. A differential method, which simply needs first and second derivatives of measured current-voltage (I-V) curves, is put forward. No a priori assumptions are required, other than those which are typical for space-charge-limited currents. An extension to the mixed case of exponentially distributed traps and field-dependent mobility is briefly outlined. The extraction of mobility from measurements can be a valuable tool for the theoretician: theoretical predictions on mobility field-dependence can be easily compared to the real field-dependence, thus permitting an improvement of the model and stimulating the development of transport theory. This method can be of particular relevance for organic semiconductors, whose field-dependent mobility has recently attracted so much theoretical and experimental work.
Even though it is recognized that the study of polarization from cosmic high-energy sources can give very important information about the nature of the emission mechanism, to date very few measurements have been attempted. For several years we have proposed the use of a thick CdTe array as a position sensitive spectrometer for hard X- and soft gamma-ray astronomy, a design which is also efficient for use as a polarimeter at energies above approximately 100 keV. Herein we describe the preliminary results of our study of a polarimeter based on 4096 CdTe microcrystals that we would like to develop for a high altitude balloon experiment. We present the telescope concept with a description of each subsystem together with some results on activities devoted to the optimization of the CdTe detector units' response. Furthermore we give an evaluation of the telescope performance in terms of achievable spectroscopic and polarimetric performance. In particular we will show the results of Monte Carlo simulations developed to evaluate the efficiency of our detector as a hard X ray polarimeter.
Silicon Drift Detectors (SDDs) with integrated readout transistors combine a large sensitive area with a small total readnode capacitance and are therefore well suited for high resolution, high count rate X-ray spectroscopy. The low leakage current level obtained by elaborated process technology makes it possible to operate them at room temperature or with moderate thermo-electric cooling. The monolithic combination of several SDDs to a multichannel drift detector solves the limited of size and allows for the realization of new physics experiments and systems. Up to 3 cm2 large SDDs for spectroscopic applications were fabricated and tested. Position sensitive X-ray systems are introduced. The description of the device principle is followed by the introduction of the multichannel drift detector concept. Layout, performance and examples of current and future applications are presented.
The paper discusses the carrier transport mechanism and the electrical characteristics of light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs) based on a methyl substituted laddertype poly(para phenylene) (m-LPPP). An intensive set of measurements, such as Current-Voltage (I-V), Capacitance- Voltage (C-V) and temperature investigations are used to track the formation of the highly conductive contacts, the initial diffusive carrier transport regime, the onset of a net voltage drop across the polymeric bulk and the final resistive behavior of the device in which carriers are driven by drift. In particular, the strong increase of the capacitance is shown to be a signature of the large carrier injection through the contacts and their diffusion through the active layer. Clearly visible hysterisis behavior in the I-V and C-V plots are also discussed to suggest polymer electrochemical doping at the interfaces.
Ezio Caroli, John Stephen, Natalia Auricchio, Giuseppe Bertuccio, Guido Di Cocco, Ariano Donati, Waldes Dusi, Pietro Gallina, Gianni Landini, Marco Sampietro
Current space instrumentation has confirmed that the energy band between 10 keV and a few MeV is a very important astrophysical region. This is mostly due to the variety of emitting objects with different spatial distributions and variability time scales, and in particular, to the number of transient phenomena whose nature is still very unclear. In order to fulfil the observational requirements in this energy range and taking into account the opportunities given by small/medium size missions we propose to construct a compact wide field telescope based on a thick CdTe position sensitive spectrometer and a twin scale coded mask. In this paper we describe the instrument concept as it was designed for the International Space Station Alpha: an array of CdTe crystal constructed by the replication of a basic linear module. Each linear module has a low noise and power dissipation integrated front end electronics of which we describe the functionality and some results from prototypes. We also present an evaluation of the performance achievable with such a high energy telescope in terms of imaging performance, polarimetric capabilities and sensitivity. Furthermore we describe current developments, in particular on CdTe linear arrays and low noise, low power consumption integrated front-end electronics.
In this paper we analyze in detail a peculiar behavior of CdTe detectors, namely the fact that in conjunction with a typical resistive electrical characteristic in which the current is proportional to the externally applied biasing voltage through an equivalent detector resistance, the detector shows a noise level well above the corresponding Johnson noise and close to the shot noise of the standing current. By using a correlation spectrum analyzer, a careful and extensive experimental analysis of the current noise behavior of CdTe detectors for X and (gamma) ray has been performed. The current noise spectra have been measured over a wide range of frequencies, from below 1Hz up to 100kHz and operating points from 0V up to 150V. In addition to a strong 1/f component, a white noise is present at the level of the shot noise of the standing current and extending in frequency for a limited range related to the carriers transit time across the detector.
PN-CCDs are being developed as focal plane detectors for ESA's X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite mission (XMM), to be launched at the end of this century. As a part of the European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC) the pn-CCDs will convert the incoming X-ray radiation with high quantum efficiency, low readout noise, excellent background rejection, timing in the microsec regime, radiation tolerance up to several hundreds of krads and a position resolution tailored according to the angular resolution of the telescope. The goal of our laboratorial efforts for this mission is to fabricate a monolithic pn-CCD of an active area of 6 x 6 sq cm having 768 on-chip JFET amplifiers located at the end of each CCD line. It is the aim of this contribution to report on the ongoing work of the pn-CCD system. This article focuses on the position resolution capabilities of fully depleted pn-CCDs, some recent results in the noise analysis and preliminary results on 10 MeV proton damage.
Recent results on the on-chip electronics, transfer properties, and radiation entrance window of pn-CCDs are presented. With recently fabricated devices, an improved charge transfer efficiency per pixel of 0.9995 and an energy resolution of the CCD output stage of 5 e(-) rms have been measured. This performance is achieved without a degradation of other characteristics of the devices, such as an X-ray efficiency of 90 percent at 10 keV, more than a factor of 1000 better time resolution in the full frame mode in comparison with all other CCD concepts, and a one-dimensional spatial resolution of 24 microsec in the timing mode. The use of pn-junctions instead of MOS structures makes the devices intrinsically radiation resistant.
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