Phys.org November 7, 2022
Silicon photonics has unique advantages of ultra-high integration density as well as CMOS compatibility, and thus makes it possible to develop large-scale programmable optical signal processors. However, the high silicon waveguides propagation losses and the high calibration complexity for all tuning elements due to the random phase errors is a challenge. An international team of researchers (China, USA – Industry) demonstrated a programmable silicon photonic processor by introducing low-loss multimode photonic waveguide spirals and low-random-phase-error Mach-Zehnder switches. The waveguide spirals were designed to be as wide as 2 µm, enabling an ultralow propagation loss of 0.28 dB/cm. and the MZCs and MZSs are designed with 2-µm-wide arm waveguides, and thus the random phase errors in the MZC/MZS arms were negligible…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Schematic of an on-chip optical signal processor. Credit: Compuscript Ltd