Graduate Exam Abstract

Abstract: Silicon photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are increasingly being explored for next-generation optical communication systems in both near-Earth and deep-space missions. This growing interest stems from the rising demand for high throughput data links—potentially reaching terabit-per-second rates—alongside the pressing need to reduce size, weight, power consumption, and cost (SWaP-C). As missions push further into harsh space environments, it becomes critical to evaluate the impact of space radiation on the performance and reliability of PICs. This thesis aims to present a design-space exploration and simulation framework, called RADPIC, for studying the impact of radiation on PICs. RADPIC consists of optical and electrical analyses and simulations that consider the impact of total ionizing dose (TID) on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) based PICs. As a case study, we analyze the performance (e.g., frequency response, extinction ratio, Quality factor) of a microring resonator modulator (MRM) under radiation exposure. The results are compared with previously reported experimental data and demonstrate good agreement. RADPIC lays the foundation for developing radiation digital twin models, enabling enhanced performance and radiation hardness of PICs for space missions.

Adviser: Mahdi Nikdast
Co-Adviser: Biswajit Ray
Non-ECE Member: Michael Mooney
Member 3: N/A
Addional Members: N/A

Publications:
N/A

Program of Study:
ECE528
ECE561
ECE544
ECE512
ECE530
ECE556
ECE578
ECE699