Key innovation in photonic components could transform supercomputing technology

Phys.org  February 5, 2024 Researchers in South Korea demonstrated the array-level tunable couplers and phase shifters with capacitive electrostatic microelectromechanical actuators in a recirculating mesh network. The overall fabrication process was compatible with the conventional wafer-level passive silicon photonics platform. Extremely low unit-level standby power consumption of and reconfiguration energy with <11 V programming voltages offered well-balanced, scalable routes for efficient phase and amplitude modulation of the guided lightwaves with sub-decibel optical losses. The extinction ratios of the continuously tunable directional coupler exceed 30 dB. Full 2π-phase shifting could be achieved with a modulation efficiency of less than 0.075 V cm and a phase-dependent […]

New technique for photon detection

Science Daily  December 12, 2023 Currently, all available detectors for detecting long wave infrared (LWIR) light at room temperature operate on amplitude modulation (AM) and are limited in performance by AM noises, including Johnson noise, shot noise, and background fluctuation noise. Researchers at the University of Central Florida have introduced a frequency modulation (FM)-based detection technique , which offers inherent robustness against different types of AM noises. The FM-based approach yields an outstanding room temperature noise equivalent power (NEP), response time, and detectivity (D*). According to the researchers this result promises a novel uncooled LWIR detection scheme that is highly […]

A first-of-its-kind chip features both a laser and waveguide to create a photonic integrated circuit

Phys.org  August 9, 2023 To replace bulk optics and fibres in high-precision and highly coherent applications, ultralow-noise laser sources integrated with other photonic components in a compact and robustly aligned on a single chip are preferred. However, there are two major issues preventing the realization of such photonic integrated circuits: the high phase noise of semiconductor lasers and the difficulty of integrating optical isolators directly on-chip. An international team of researchers (USA – UC Santa Barbara, Caltech, industry, Egypt) leveraged three-dimensional integration that resulted in ultralow-noise lasers with isolator-free operation for silicon photonics. Through multiple monolithic and heterogeneous processing sequences, […]

Revolutionizing optical control with topological edge states

Phys.org  June 6, 2023 It is highly desirable to be able to control topological edge states (TES) transport in photonic implementations. Enhancing the coupling between the TESs in a finite-size optical lattice can exchange light energy between the boundaries of a topological lattice, hence facilitating the flexible control of TES transport. However, existing strategies have paid little attention to enhancing the coupling effects between the TESs through the finite-size effect. Researchers in China established a bridge linking the interaction between the TESs in a finite-size optical lattice using the Landau–Zener model to provide an alternative way to modulate/control the transport […]

Researchers use structured light on a chip in another photonics breakthrough

Phys.org  May 17, 2023 Despite recent demonstrations of various topological photonic phases, the full potential offered by Dirac photonic systems, specifically their ability to emulate the spin degree of freedom—referred to as pseudo-spin—beyond topological boundary modes has remained underexplored. An international team of researcher (USA – City College of New York, AFRL (Eglin AFB), Australia) showed an example of relativistic-like trapping in photonic system that realizes Dirac-like dispersion with spatially inhomogeneous mass term. The modes trapped by such cavities, their energy levels, and corresponding orbitals were characterized through optical imaging in real and momentum space. The fabricated cavities hosted a […]

Quantum light source goes fully on-chip, bringing scalability to the quantum cloud

Nanowerk  April 17, 2023 The quantum light sources developed so far have relied on external bulky excitation lasers, making them impractical prototype devices that are not reproducible, hindering their scalability and transfer out of the laboratory into real-world applications. An international team of researchers (Germany, the Netherlands) demonstrated a fully integrated quantum light source that overcame these challenges through the integration of a laser cavity, a highly efficient tunable noise suppression filter and a nonlinear microring for entangled photon-pair generation through spontaneous four-wave mixing. The hybrid quantum source employed an electrically pumped InP gain section and a Si3N4 low-loss microring […]

A new type of photonic time crystal gives light a boost

Phys.org  April 5, 2023 The synthesis of photonic time crystals materials and experimental observation of their physics remain very challenging because of the stringent requirement for uniform modulation of material properties in volumetric samples. An international team of researchers (Finland, Germany, USA – Stanford University) has extended the concept of photonic time crystals to two-dimensional metasurfaces. They demonstrated that time-varying metasurfaces not only preserve key physical properties of volumetric photonic time crystals despite their simpler topology but also host common momentum bandgaps shared by both surface and free-space electromagnetic waves. Based on a microwave metasurface design, they experimentally confirmed the […]

Team develops silicon photonic MEMS compatible with semiconductor manufacturing

Phys.org  March 22, 2023 Silicon’s relatively weak electro-optic effects result in modulators with a significant footprint and thermo-optic tuning devices that require high power consumption, which are substantial impediments for very large-scale integration in silicon photonics. An international team of researchers (Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland) has introduced a silicon photonic MEMS platform consisting of high-performance nano-opto-electromechanical devices fully integrated alongside standard silicon photonics foundry components, with wafer-level sealing for long-term reliability, flip-chip bonding to redistribution interposers, and fibre-array attachment for high port count optical and electrical interfacing. Their experimental demonstration of fundamental silicon photonic MEMS circuit elements, including power couplers, […]

Photonic hopfions: Light shaped as a smoke ring that behaves like a particle

Phys.org  January 19, 2023 Achieving hopfions with light waves is very elusive. An international team of researchers (UK, China) proposed and demonstrated photonic counterparts of hopfions with exact characteristics of Hopf vibration, Hopf index, and Hopf mapping from real-space vector beams to homotopic hyperspheres representing polarization states. They experimentally generated photonic hopfions with on-demand high-order Hopf indices and independently controlled topological textures, including Néel-, Bloch-, and antiskyrmionic types. They also demonstrated a robust free-space transport of photonic hopfions, thus showing the potential of hopfions for developing optical topological informatics and communications. According to the researchers their work provides a theoretical […]

Photonic chip with record-breaking radio frequency dynamic range

Phys.org  December 22, 2022 An international team of researchers (the Netherlands, China, Switzerland) has developed a multi-functional photonic integrated circuit that enables programmable filtering functions with record-high performance using versatile complex spectrum tailoring enabled by an all-integrated modulation transformer and a double injection ring resonator as a multi-function optical filtering component. They demonstrated reconfigurable filter functions with record-low noise figure and a RF notch filter with ultra-high dynamic range. According to the researchers their work breaks the conventional and fragmented approach of integration, functionality and performance that currently prevents the adoption of integrated microwave photonic systems in real applications…read more. […]