Demonstration of a directed XNOR/XOR optical logic circuit based on silicon Mach-Zehnder interferometer

We demonstrate a directed XNOR/XOR optical logic circuit based on silicon Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The device with the symmetric arm design is wavelength-insensitive in a wavelength range of 40 nm. The device has an electro-optical bandwidth of around 20 GHz. When the device is optically biased at the maximum or minimum transmission points by tuning the heater on one of its arms, it can perform the XNOR or XOR operations respectively at a speed up to 20 Gbps. The high-speed and reconfigurable abilities of the device make it suitable for the future programmable optical logic array.