TY - UNPB N2 - In this dissertation, a comprehensive and rigorous analysis of BER performance in the single- and multi-channel silicon optical interconnects is presented. The illustrated computational algorithms and new results can furnish one with insight of how to engineer waveguide dimensions, optical nonlinearity and dispersion, in order to facilitate the design and construction of the ultra-fast and low-cost chip-level communications for next-generation high-performance computing systems. Two types of optical links have been intensively discussed in this dissertation, namely a strip single-mode silicon photonic waveguide and a silicon photonic crystal waveguide. Different types of optical input signals are considered here, including an ON-OFF keying modulated nonreturn-to-zero continuous-wave signal, a phase-shift keying modulated continuous-wave signal, and a Gaussian pulsed signal, all in presence of white noise. The output signal is detected and analyzed using direct-detection optical receivers. To model the signal propagation in the single- and multi-channel silicon photonic waveguides, we employ both rigorous theoretical models that incorporate all relevant linear and nonlinear optical effects and the mutual interaction between the free carriers and the optical field, as well as their linearized version valid in the low-noise power regime. Particularly, the second propagation model is designed only for optical continuous-wave signals. Equally important, the bit error rate (BER) of the transmitted signal is accurately and efficiently calculated by using the Karhunen-Loeve series expansion methods, with these approaches performed via the time-domain, frequency-domain, and Fourier-series expansion, separately. Based on the theoretical models proposed in this work, a system analysis engine has been constructed numerically. This engine can not only analyze the underlying physics of silicon waveguides, but also evaluate the system performance, which is extremely valuable for the configuration and optimization of the optical networks on chip. M1 - Doctoral PB - UCL (University College London) Y1 - 2017/07/28/ A1 - You, J N1 - Unpublished ID - discovery1565186 AV - public EP - 200 UR - https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1565186/ TI - Calculation of bit error rates of optical signal transmission in nano-scale silicon photonic waveguides ER -