Kerr effect based optical switching for the assessment of all-optical sequence generator and decoder circuits

Abstract The sequence generator and decoders are used for noise analysis, signal propagation, data processing, and bit error rate analysis. The semiconductor and modern electronic components are facing challenges in terms of processing speed and data rates. However, by using photons rather than electrons as the information carriers, these difficulties can be reduced. Photonic devices attained the operating speed in the regime of terahertz, but sit back due to the diffraction limit, which can be overcome by employing plasmon-based devices or all-optical devices. This work presents a numerical investigation of metal-insulator-metal (MIM) plasmonic waveguides based two-bit sequence generator (SG) and decoder. The structure of SG and decoder circuits are designed within the footprints of 86 × 9 and 140 × 9 µm, by cascading one power splitter (PS) and four Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs), and two PS and five MZI, respectively. To design the MZI, the optimization of the S-bend waveguide, the coupling length of the power splitter, and the length of the interferometric arm are done by recording the output power. The highest extinction ratio of 22.1 dB is attained at the coupling and interferometric arm lengths of 1.5 µm and 5 µm, respectively. The propagation of the optical signal through the structure of SG is observed by using a two-dimensional finite difference time domain method-based tool.