Photonic Integrated Circuits for Passive Optical Networks: Outlook and Case Study of Integrated Quasi-Coherent Receiver

Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) are taking a major role in the telecommunications and datacenter markets. The increased complexity of coexisting and fast evolving standards for Passive Optical Networks (PONs) suggests the introduction of PICs will be the next step in PON related optoelectronics. The PICs ecosystem has greatly matured in the past years, becoming a solution that can cope with the requirements of industry and academia, and presenting the flexibility of combining multiple platforms available towards viable commercial solutions. In this review, the evolution of PONs and PICs is presented, with a focus on the optoelectronic integration of PICs for PONs and coherent PONs. To demonstrate the potential of PICs and their combination with electronics, a quasi-coherent receiver based on co-hosted PIC and Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) is presented and characterized.