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Review of Scientific Instruments

A laser source driver with adjustable amplitude and pulse-width in 130-nm CMOS technology for quantum key distribution experiments

Bo Feng, Futian Liang, Xinzhe Wang, Chenxi Zhu, Yulong Zhu, Ge Jin

Published Jun 1, 2019• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a laser source driver using a 130-nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology, named quantum laser source driver 2018 (QLSD2018). QLSD2018 drives the optical source with a current pulse signal, and the output of QLSD2018 has an adjustable pulse-width from 300 ps to 3.8 ns and an adjustable amplitude up to 70 mA. The data rate is up to 625 Mb/s, and the extinction ratio of the optical source (the 1550-nm distributed feedback laser or the 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser) driven by QLSD2018 can reach 26 dB. The test results indicate that QLSD2018 can be used in quantum key distribution experiments. Using QLSD2018 on the transmitter side can significantly simplify the peripheral circuit of the optical source.

DOI
10.1063/1.5100318

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We present a laser source driver using a 130-nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology, named quantum laser source driver 2018 (QLSD2018). QLSD2018 drives the optical source with a current pulse signal, and the output of QLSD2018 has an adjustable pulse-width from 300 ps to 3.8 ns and an adjustable amplitude up to 70 mA. The data rate is up to 625 Mb/s, and the extinction ratio of the optical source (the 1550-nm distributed feedback laser or the 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser) driven by QLSD2018 can reach 26 dB. The test results indicate that QLSD2018 can be used in quantum key distribution experiments. Using QLSD2018 on the transmitter side can significantly simplify the peripheral circuit of the optical source.
Laser modulation is a process to modulate the photons to different states in quantum key distribution (QKD) system. A laser modulation driver, which is a pre-driver for the laser modulator, is presented in this paper. The laser modulation driver is implemented in a 130-nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process. The laser modulation driver can provide a current pulse signal with an adjustable amplitude and an adjustable pulse-width to a distributed power amplifier. The pulse-width of the current signal can be adjusted from 300 ps to 3800 ps, the maximum adjustable amplitude is 14.4 mA, and the data rate can reach 625 Mb/s. According to the test results, the laser modulation driver can meet the requirements of the electro-optic modulator (EOM) in QKD system, and it can be used in the laser modulation circuit in QKD experiments.
This paper presents a laser modulation driver using active feedback in a 130-nm CMOS process. The driver is designed for laser modulator in quantum key distribution (QKD) experiments. The laser modulator requires a drive signal with adjustable amplitude and pulse-width. We employ a delay-adjustable delay chain and a multi-stage amplifier with active feedback to provide a current pulse signal with an adjustable pulse-width from 110 ps to 3.3 ns and an amplitude adjustment range of 0 mA to 14.4 mA to drive the laser modulation. By employing the active feedback, the rising/falling edge of the output current in the proposed circuit can reach 70 ps, while the data rate is up to 625 Mb/s. The post layout simulation results indicate that the modulation driver can meet the requirements of the QKD experiments.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) has rapidly developed recently. The repetition frequency of the QKD system increases from tens or hundreds of MHz to GHz. A laser diode (LD) operating in gain-switched mode is widely used as a weak coherent light source in a QKD system. We present an LD driver circuit fabricated in 0.18 μm SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor bipolar complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology. The circuit can operate at frequencies up to 2.5 GHz, satisfying the requirements of high-speed laser drives in practical QKD systems. The output current of the driver circuit can reach 100 mA when driving an LD whose input equivalent resistance is ∼21 Ω. The extinction ratio of the 1550-nm distributed feedback LD light source driven by our driver circuit reaches 23 dB at the operating frequency of 2.5 GHz, meeting the requirements of QKD systems. This circuit will be used in miniaturized QKD systems.
The single photon source is an important part of the quantum key distribution (QKD) system. At present, the single photon source is large in size and complex in structure for a lot of discrete components which are used. The miniaturization of the photon source is the tendency of the QKD system. We integrate all laser driver electronic module into one single ASIC chip, which can be used to drive the 1550nm DFB laser in random pulse mode and it can greatly reduce the volume of the single photon source. We present the design of the chip named LSD2018 and simulation results before the tape-out. The LSD2018 is fabricated with a 130 nm CMOS process and consists of a discriminator, an adjustable pulse generator, a bandgap reference, an SPI bus, and an amplitude-adjustable current pulse driver. The electronic random pulse from the driver can go 20mA to 120mA in amplitude and 400ps to 4ns in pulse width. The parameters can be set by an SPI bus.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is the most mature method for implementing commercial quantum communications in practice. As part of the miniaturization of practical QKD devices, an integrated electronic system in the 130 nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor process is presented for the QKD sender device. The electronics provide driving signals for the optics at the sender terminal of the quantum channel in QKD and consist mainly of three key modules, namely, a laser diode driver with a high slew rate, a high-speed physical random number generator, and a pre-driver for the electro-optic modulator. The electronic system is designed to operate at frequencies as high as 625-MHz to accommodate the frequency of the QKD system. The high degree of integration is advantageous for miniaturizing QKD sender devices.
In this paper, we analyse a pulsed laser diode driver system based on MOSFET current mirror and digital signal controller (DSC) designed to emit stream pairs of photons from three semiconductor laser diodes. The DSC is capable to switch between the three laser diodes at constant rate. The duty cycle is maintained at below than 10% while the pulse width of the modulation current is set at around 30ns in order to minimize its thermal effect and thus prolong the laser diodes life cycle. The MOSFET current mirror circuits are capable of delivering constant modulation current to the laser diodes with its peak is up to 58mA resulting a peak optical power output around 7dBm.