arXiv subjects

Stijn Sackesyn

Publications and source records attributed to Stijn Sackesyn.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Baudrate- and Reach-Flexible All-Optical Equalization with a Co-Packaged Photonic Reservoir and Receiver

Intensity-modulation direct-detection links must support increasing baudrates and transmission distances while operating under stringent power and cost constraints. However, as data rates and reaches increase, chromatic dispersion induces stronger inter-symbol interference and, after direct detection, frequency-selective fading, thus requiring increasingly powerful equalization. In conventional receivers, this translates into digital equalization whose complexity scales unfavorably with data rate. Photonic-domain equalization offers a hardware-based alternative that operates naturally at line rate and mitigates frequency fading. However, prior demonstrations were not readily adaptable for different rate and/or reach operation. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate all-optical equalization across 10-46 Gbaud and 10-250 km SSMF in the C-band enabled solely through retraining of the readout layer, achieving up to four orders of magnitude BER improvement over standard DSP equalization. The demonstrator comprises a 16-node spatially multiplexed reservoir, programmable on-chip readout, and co-packaged receiver front-end. To our knowledge, this is the first co-packaged photonic reservoir receiver and the first demonstration of simultaneous baudrate- and reach-flexible equalization using a fixed-topology integrated photonic circuit.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2025

Real-time all-optical signal equalisation with silicon photonic recurrent neural networks

Communication through optical fibres experiences limitations due to chromatic dispersion and nonlinear Kerr effects that degrade the signal. Mitigating these impairments is typically done using complex digital signal processing algorithms. However, these equalisation methods require significant power consumption and introduce high latencies. Photonic reservoir computing (a subfield of neural networks) offers an alternative solution, processing signals in the analog optical Domain. In this work, we present to our knowledge the very first experimental demonstration of real-time online equalisation of fibre distortions using a silicon photonics chip that combines the recurrent reservoir and the programmable readout layer. We successfully equalize a 28 Gbps on-off keying signal across varying power levels and fibre lengths, even in the highly nonlinear regime. We obtain bit error rates orders of magnitude below previously reported optical equalisation methods, reaching as low as 4e-7 , far below the generic forward error correction limit of 5.8e-5 used in commercial Ethernet interfaces. Also, simulations show that simply by removing delay lines, the system becomes compatible with line rates of 896 Gpbs. Using wavelength multiplexing, this can result in a throughput in excess of 89.6 Tbps. Finally, incorporating non-volatile phase shifters, the power consumption can be less than 6 fJ/bit.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Integrated Photonic Reservoir Computing with All-Optical Readout

Integrated photonic reservoir computing has been demonstrated to be able to tackle different problems because of its neural network nature. A key advantage of photonic reservoir computing over other neuromorphic paradigms is its straightforward readout system, which facilitates both rapid training and robust, fabrication variation-insensitive photonic integrated hardware implementation for real-time processing. We present our recent development of a fully-optical, coherent photonic reservoir chip integrated with an optical readout system, capitalizing on these benefits. Alongside the integrated system, we also demonstrate a weight update strategy that is suitable for the integrated optical readout hardware. Using this online training scheme, we successfully solved 3-bit header recognition and delayed XOR tasks at 20 Gbps in real-time, all within the optical domain without excess delays.

physics.optics↗