Wavelength conversion based on degenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) was demonstrated and compared between silicon nanowire and microring resonator (MRR). 15 dB enhancement of conversion efficiency (CE) with relatively low input pump power (5 mW) was achieved experimentally in an MRR. The impacts of bus waveguide length and propagation loss were theoretically analyzed under the effect of nonlinear loss.

Silicon micro-ring resonators (MRRs) are compact and versatile devices whose periodic frequency response can be exploited for a wide range of applications. In this paper, we review our recent work on linear alloptical signal processing applications using silicon MRRs as passive filters. We focus on applications such as modulation format conversion, differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) demodulation, modulation speed enhancement of directly modulated lasers (DMLs), and monocycle pulse generation. The possibility to implement polarization diversity circuits, which reduce the polarization dependence of standard silicon MRRs, is illustrated on the particular example of DPSK demodulation.