PIC and Silicon Photonics Testing

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are a key enabler driving advances in communications, optical computing, aerospace, defense, and medical applications. However, PICs introduce unique measurement challenges, and testing remains a large contributor to the overall cost of bringing products to market. Effective testing of modern PICs requires more comprehensive, sophisticated methodologies to ensure optimal performance and reduce development costs. 

Luna’s wide range of test and measurement solutions provides customers with fast, accurate, high-resolution measurement instruments to quantitatively assess each component's optical performance, whether early in prototyping or in production.

For PIC testing that requires insertion loss, return loss, and length measurements in reflection or transmission, explore the LWA 7600 Series Lightwave Analyzer.

Luna has the technology to look inside PICs in the transmission mode or reflection mode with micrometer-level spatial resolution for a complete optical characterization of the device.

Typical measurements include:

• Insertion loss (IL)
• Return loss (RL)
• Polarization-dependent loss (PDL) vs. wavelength
• Reflectivity/transmission loss vs. distance
• Reflectivity/transmission loss vs. wavelength
• Phase response
• Group delay (GD)
• Chromatic dispersion (CD) vs. wavelength
• Polarization mode dispersion (PMD) vs. wavelength
• Second-order PMD vs. wavelength
• Min/Max Loss due to Polarization
• Impulse response
• Jones matrix and Mueller matrix elements
• Phase Ripple – Linear and Quadratic
• Polarization Performance vs. Distance
• Polarization Crosstalk vs. Distance
• Degree of Polarization (DOP), State of Polarization (SOP), and  Polarization Extinction Ratio (PER)