Universal all-optical zero-bias logic gates in silicon photonics

Universal all-optical (optical input - optical output) logic gates, realized in a commercial foundry silicon photonics process, are reported. Microring resonator modulator and zero-biased stacked photodiodes are used to create the required optical input-output nonlinear transfer function for optical gate realizations. Several logic gate functions, specifically NOR which is a universal logic gate that can be used to implement any logic, are demonstrated. Logic operation on 10 Mbps data streams is demonstrated using universal optical logic gates without requiring any electrical supply voltage. The total optical power required for one such universal logic gate is 160 mu W.