Strip-loaded waveguide-based optical phase shifter for high-efficiency silicon optical modulators

We propose a novel silicon optical phase shifter structure based on heterogeneous strip-loaded waveguides on a photonic silicon on insulator(SOI) platform. The features of an etchless SOI layer and loaded strip would enhance the performance and uniformity of silicon optical modulators on a large-scale wafer. We implemented the phase shifter by loading an amorphous silicon strip onto an SOI layer with a vertical PN diode structure. Compared to the conventional lateral PN phase shifter based on half-etched rib waveguides, this phase shifter shows a >1.5 times enhancement of modulation efficiency and provides >20 GHz high-speed operation.

Energy‑efcient integrated silicon optical phased array

An optical phased array(OPA)is a promising non-mechanical technique for beam steering in solid-state light detection and ranging systems.The performance of the OPA largely depends on the phase shifter,which afects power consumption,insertion loss,modulation speed,and footprint.However,for a thermo-optic phase shifter,achieving good performance in all aspects is challenging due to trade-ofs among these aspects.In this work,we propose and demonstrate two types of energy-efcient optical phase shifters that overcome these trade-ofs and achieve a well-balanced performance in all aspects.Additionally,the proposed round-spiral phase shifter is robust in fabrication and fully compatible with deep ultraviolet(DUV)processes,making it an ideal building block for large-scale photonic integrated circuits(PICs).Using the high-performance phase shifter,we propose a periodic OPA with low power consumption,whose maximum electric power consumption within the feld of view is only 0.33 W.Moreover,we designed Gaussian power distribution in both the azimuthal(ψ)and polar(θ)directions and experimentally achieved a large sidelobe suppression ratio of 15.1 and 25 dB,respectively.