Hybrid material integration in silicon photonic integrated circuits

Hybrid integration ofⅢ-Ⅴand ferroelectric materials is being broadly adopted to enhance functionalities in silicon photonic integrated circuits(PICs).Bonding and transfer printing have been the popular approaches for integration of III–V gain media with silicon PICs.Similar approaches are also being considered for ferroelectrics to enable larger RF modulation bandwidths,higher linearity,lower optical loss integrated optical modulators on chip.In this paper,we review existing integration strategies ofⅢ-Ⅴmaterials and present a route towards hybrid integration of bothⅢ-Ⅴand ferroelectrics on the same chip.We show that adiabatic transformation of the optical mode between hybrid ferroelectric and silicon sections enables efficient transfer of optical modal energies for maximum overlap of the optical mode with the ferroelectric media,similar to approaches adopted to maximize optical overlap with the gain section,thereby reducing lasing thresholds for hybridⅢ-Ⅴintegration with silicon PICs.Preliminary designs are presented to enable a foundry compatible hybrid integration route of diverse functionalities on silicon PICs.

Digital synthesis of programmable photonic integrated circuits

Programmable photonic waveguide meshes can be programmed into many different circuit topologies and thereby provide a variety of functions.Due to the complexity of the signal routing in a general mesh,a particular synthesis algorithm often only accounts for a specific function with a specific cell configuration.In this paper,we try to synthesize the programmable waveguide mesh to support multiple configurations with a more general digital signal processing platform.To show the feasibility of this technique,photonic waveguide meshes in different configurations(square,triangular and hexagonal meshes)are designed to realize optical signal interleaving with arbitrary duty cycles.The digital signal processing(DSP)approach offers an effective pathway for the establishment of a general design platform for the software-defined programmable photonic integrated circuits.The use of well-developed DSP techniques and algorithms establishes a link between optical and electrical signals and makes it convenient to realize the computer-aided design of optics–electronics hybrid systems.

Gigahertz-rate-switchable wavefront shaping through integration of metasurfaces with photonic integrated circuit

Achieving spatiotemporal control of light at high speeds presents immense possibilities for various applications in communication,computation,metrology,and sensing.The integration of subwavelength metasurfaces and optical waveguides offers a promising approach to manipulate light across multiple degrees of freedom at high speed in compact photonic integrated circuit(PIC)devices.Here,we demonstrate a gigahertz-rate-switchable wavefront shaping by integrating metasurface,lithium niobate on insulator photonic waveguides,and electrodes within a PIC device.As proofs of concept,we showcase the generation of a focus beam with reconfigurable arbitrary polarizations,switchable focusing with lateral focal positions and focal length,orbital angular momentum light beams as well as Bessel beams.Our measurements indicate modulation speeds of up to the gigahertz rate.This integrated platform offers a versatile and efficient means of controlling the light field at high speed within a compact system,paving the way for potential applications in optical communication,computation,sensing,and imaging.

Two-dimensional materials in photonic integrated circuits:recent developments and future perspectives[Invited]

The heterogeneous integration of photonic integrated circuits(PICs)with a diverse range of optoelectronic materials has emerged as a transformative approach,propelling photonic chips toward larger scales,superior performance,and advanced integration levels.Notably,two-dimensional(2D)materials,such as graphene,transition metal dichalcogenides(TMDCs),black phosphorus(BP),and hexagonal boron nitride(hBN),exhibit remarkable device performance and integration capabilities,offering promising potential for large-scale implementation in PICs.In this paper,we first present a comprehensive review of recent progress,systematically categorizing the integration of photonic circuits with 2D materials based on their types while also emphasizing their unique advantages.Then,we discuss the integration approaches of 2D materials with PICs.We also summarize the technical challenges in the heterogeneous integration of 2D materials in photonics and envision their immense potential for future applications in PICs.

Effect of unbalanced and common losses in quantum photonic integrated circuits

Loss is inevitable for the optical system due to the absorption of materials, scattering caused by the defects, and surface roughness. In quantum optical circuits, the loss can not only reduce the intensity of the signal, but also affect the performance of quantum operations. In this work, we divide losses into unbalanced linear losses and shared common losses, and provide a detailed analysis on how loss affects the integrated linear optical quantum gates. It is found that the orthogonality of eigenmodes and the unitary phase relation of the coupled waveguide modes are destroyed by the loss. As a result, the fidelity of single-and two-qubit operations decreases significantly as the shared loss becomes comparable to the coupling strength. Our results are important for the investigation of large-scale photonic integrated quantum information processes.

Regrowth-Free Processing for GaAs and InP Photonic Integrated Circuits

Technologies are described for integrating multiple bandgaps and photonic crystal structures monolithically in a semiconductor chip. Practical devices examples include high power 980 nm pumps, 2×2 crosspoint switches and lasers modelocked at THz frequencies.

Photonic integrated circuit components based on amorphous silicon-on-insulator technology

We present integrated-optic building blocks and functional photonic devices based on amorphous siliconon-insulator technology. Efficient deep-etched fiber-to-chip grating couplers, low-loss single-mode photonic wire waveguides, and compact power splitters are presented. Based on the sub-μm photonic wires, 2 × 2 Mach–Zehnder interferometers and add/drop microring resonators(MRRs) with low device footprints and high finesse up to 200 were realized and studied. Compact polarization rotators and splitters with ≥10 d B polarization extinction ratio were fabricated for the polarization management on-chip. The tuning and trimming capabilities of the material platform are demonstrated with efficient microheaters and a permanent device trimming method, which enabled the realization of energy-efficient photonic circuits. Wavelength multiplexers in the form of cascaded filter banks and 4 × 4 routers based on MRR switches are presented. Fabrication imperfections were analyzed and permanently corrected by an accurate laser-trimming method, thus enabling eight-channel multiplexers with record low metrics of sub-m W static power consumption and ≤1°C temperature overhead. The high quality of the functional devices, the high tuning efficiency, and the excellent trimming capabilities demonstrate the potential to realize low-cost, densely integrated, and ultralow-power 3D-stacked photonic circuits on top of CMOS microelectronics.

High performance integrated photonic circuit based on inverse design method

The basic indexes of all-optical integrated photonic circuits include high-density integration,ultrafast response and ultralow energy consumption.Traditional methods mainly adopt conventional micro/nano-structures.The overall size of the circuit is large,usually reaches hundreds of microns.Besides,it is difficult to balance the ultrafast response and ultra-low energy consumption problem,and the crosstalk between two traditional devices is difficult to overcome.Here,we propose and experimentally demonstrate an approach based on inverse design method to realize a high-density,ultrafast and ultra-low energy consumption integrated photonic circuit with two all-optical switches controlling the input states of an all-optical XOR logic gate.The feature size of the whole circuit is only 2.5μm×7μm,and that of a single device is 2μm×2μm.The distance between two adjacent devices is as small as 1.5μm,within wavelength magnitude scale.Theoretical response time of the circuit is 150 fs,and the threshold energy is within 10 fJ/bit.We have also considered the crosstalk problem.The circuit also realizes a function of identifying two-digit logic signal results.Our work provides a new idea for the design of ultrafast,ultra-low energy consumption all-optical devices and the implementation of high-density photonic integrated circuits.

Low-loss chip-scale programmable silicon photonic processor

Chip-scale programmable optical signal processors are often used to flexibly manipulate the optical signals for satisfying the demands in various applications,such as lidar,radar,and artificial intelligence.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.The challenge is the high silicon waveguides propagation losses and the high calibration complexity for all tuning elements due to the random phase errors.In this paper,we propose and demonstrate a programmable silicon photonic processor for the first time by introducing low-loss multimode photonic waveguide spirals and low-random-phase-error Mach-Zehnder switches.The present chip-scale programmable silicon photonic processor comprises a 1×4 variable power splitter based on cascaded Mach-Zehnder couplers(MZCs),four Ge/Si photodetectors,four channels of thermally-tunable optical delaylines.Each channel consists of a continuously-tuning phase shifter based on a waveguide spiral with a micro-heater and a digitally-tuning delayline realized with cascaded waveguide-spiral delaylines and MZSs for 5.68 ps time-delay step.Particularly,these waveguide spirals used here are designed to be as wide as 2μm,enabling an ultralow propagation loss of 0.28 dB/cm.Meanwhile,these MZCs and MZSs are designed with 2-μm-wide arm waveguides,and thus the random phase errors in the MZC/MZS arms are negligible,in which case the calibration for these MZSs/MZCs becomes easy and furthermore the power consumption for compensating the phase errors can be reduced greatly.Finally,this programmable silicon photonic processor is demonstrated successfully to verify a number of distinctively different functionalities,including tunable time-delay,microwave photonic beamforming,arbitrary optical signal filtering,and arbitrary waveform generation.

Avalanche photodiodes on silicon photonics

Silicon photonics technology has drawn significant interest due to its potential for compact and high-performance photonic integrated circuits.The Ge-or III-V material-based avalanche photodiodes integrated on silicon photonics provide ideal high sensitivity optical receivers for telecommunication wavelengths.Herein,the last advances of monolithic and hetero-geneous avalanche photodiodes on silicon are reviewed,including different device structures and semiconductor systems.

High-Q micro-ring resonators and grating couplers for silicon-on-insulator integrated photonic circuits

An ultra-small integrated photonic circuit has been proposed,which incorporates a high-quality-factor passive micro-ring resonator（MR） linked to a vertical grating coupler on a standard silicon-on-insulator（SOI） substrate.The experimental results demonstrate that the MR propagation loss is 0.532 dB/cm with a 10μm radius ring resonator,the intrinsic quality factor is as high as 202.000,the waveguide grating wavelength response curve is a 1 dB bandwidth of 40 nm at 1540 nm telecommunication wavelengths,and the measured fiber-to-fiber coupling loss is 10 dB.Furthermore,the resonator wavelength temperature dependence of the 450 nm wide micro-ring resonator is 54.1 pm/℃.Such vertical grating coupler and low loss MR-integrated components greatly promote a key element in biosensors and high-speed interconnect communication applications.

Applications of thin-film lithium niobate in nonlinear integrated photonics

Photonics on thin-film lithium niobate(TFLN)has emerged as one of the most pursued disciplines within integrated optics.Ultracompact and low-loss optical waveguides and related devices on this modern material platform have rejuvenated the traditional and commercial applications of lithium niobate for optical modulators based on the electro-optic effect,as well as optical wavelength converters based on secondorder nonlinear effects,e.g.,second-harmonic,sum-,and difference-frequency generations.TFLN has also created vast opportunities for applications and integrated solutions for optical parametric amplification and oscillation,cascaded nonlinear effects,such as low-harmonic generation;third-order nonlinear effects,such as supercontinuum generation;optical frequency comb generation and stabilization;and nonclassical nonlinear effects,such as spontaneous parametric downconversion for quantum optics.Recent progress in nonlinear integrated photonics on TFLN for all these applications,their current trends,and future opportunities and challenges are reviewed.

Photonic circuits written by femtosecond laser in glass:improved fabrication and recent progress in photonic devices

Integrated photonics is attracting considerable attention and has found many applications in both classical and quantum optics,fulfilling the requirements for the ever-growing complexity in modern optical experiments and big data communication.Femtosecond(fs)laser direct writing(FLDW)is an acknowledged technique for producing waveguides(WGs)in transparent glass that have been used to construct complex integrated photonic devices.FLDW possesses unique features,such as three-dimensional fabrication geometry,rapid prototyping,and single step fabrication,which are important for integrated communication devices and quantum photonic and astrophotonic technologies.To fully take advantage of FLDW,considerable efforts have been made to produce WGs over a large depth with low propagation loss,coupling loss,bend loss,and highly symmetrical mode field.We summarize the improved techniques as well as the mechanisms for writing high-performance WGs with controllable morphology of cross-section,highly symmetrical mode field,low loss,and high processing uniformity and efficiency,and discuss the recent progress of WGs in photonic integrated devices for communication,topological physics,quantum information processing,and astrophotonics.Prospective challenges and future research directions in this field are also pointed out.

Latest advances in high-performance light sources and optical amplifiers on silicon

Efficient light generation and amplification has long been missing on the silicon platform due to its well-known indirect bandgap nature.Driven by the size,weight,power and cost(SWaP-C)requirements,the desire to fully realize integrated silicon electronic and photonic integrated circuits has greatly pushed the effort of realizing high performance on-chip lasers and amplifiers moving forward.Several approaches have been proposed and demonstrated to address this issue.In this paper,a brief overview of recent progress of the high-performance lasers and amplifiers on Si based on different technology is presented.Representative device demonstrations,including ultra-narrow linewidthⅢ-Ⅴ/Si lasers,fully integratedⅢ-Ⅴ/Si/Si3N4 lasers,high-channel count mode locked quantum dot(QD)lasers,and high gain QD amplifiers will be covered.

Semi-vectorial analysis of a compact wavelength demultiplexer based on the tapered multimode interference coupler

Based on a parabolically tapered multimode interference （MMI） coupler with a deep-etched SiO2/SiON rib waveguide, a compact wavelength demultiplexer operating at 1.30 and 1.55 μm wavelengths is proposed and analysed by using three-dimensional semi-vectorial finite-difference beam propagation method （3D-SV-FD-BPM）. The results show that a MMI section of 330.0 μm in length, which is only 76% length of a straight MMI coupler, is achieved with the contrasts of 42.3 and 39.2dB in quasi-TE mode, and 38.4 and 37.8dB in quasi-TM mode at wavelengths 1.30 and 1.55μm, respectively, and the insertion losses below 0.2dB at both wavelengths and in both polarization states, The alternating direction implicit algorithm with the Crank-Nicholson scheme is applied to the discretization of the 3D-SV-FD-BPM formulation along the longitudinal direction. Moreover, a modified FD scheme is constructed to approximate the resulting equations along the transverse directions, in which the discontinuities of the derivatives of magnetic field components Hy and Hx along the vertical and horizontal interfaces, respectively, are involved.

High-efficiency focusing grating coupler with optimized ultra-short taper

A novel high-efficiency focusing non-uniform grating coupler is proposed to couple light into or off silicon photonic chips for large-scale silicon photonic integration. This kind of grating coupler decreases the transition length of the linking taper between the grating and the single-mode waveguide by at least 80%. The radian of the grating lines and the size of the taper are optimized to improve the coupling efficiency. An experimental coupling efficiency of ~ 68% at 1556.24 nm is obtained after optimization and the whole size of the grating is 12 μm × 30 μm, with a very short taper transition of ~15 μm long.

Rainbow trapping based on long-range plasmonic Bragg gratings at telecom frequencies

The group velocity of long-range surface plasmon polaritons （LRSPPs） in a wide frequency bandwidth at infrared frequencies is significantly reduced by dielectric gratings of graded thickness on both sides of a thin metal film. This structure can reduce the propagation loss of slow surface plasmons in ＂rainbow trapping＂ systems based on plasmonic Bragg gratings. Compared with dielectric gratings of graded thickness on a single side of a metal film, the proposed structure is able to guide slow light with a much longer propagation distance for the same group index factor. Finite- difference time-domain simulation results show that slow LRSPPs with the group velocity of c/14.5 and the propagation distance of 10.4 μm are achieved in dielectric gratings of uniform thickness on both sides of a thin metal film at 1.62 μm.

Heterogeneous 2D/3D photonic integrated microsystems

The continuing trend of exponential growth in data communications and processing are driving the need for large-scale heterogeneous integration.Similar to the trend we have observed in electronic integrated circuit development,we are witnessing a growing trend in 3D photonic integrated circuits(PICs)development in addition to that in 2D PICs.There are two main methods for fabricating 3D PICs.The first method,which utilizes ultrafast laser inscription(ULI),offers freeform shaping of waveguides in arbitrary contours and formations.The second method,which utilizes multilayer stacking and coupling of planar PICs,exploits relatively mature 2D PIC fabrication processes applied to each layer sequentially.Both the fabrication methods for 3D PICs have advantages and disadvantages such that certain applications may favor one method over the other.However,a joining of 2D PICs with 3D PICs can help develop integrated microsystems with new functionalities such as non-mechanical beam steering,spacedivision multiplexing(SDM),programmable arbitrary beam shaping,and photonic signal processing.We discuss examples of 3D PICs and 2D/3D integrated PICs in two applications:SDM via orbital-angular-momentum(OAM)multiplexing/demultiplexing and optical beam steering using optical phased arrays.Although a 2D PIC by itself can function as an OAM multiplexer or demultiplexer,it has limitations in supporting both polarizations.Alternatively,a 3D PIC fabricated by ULI can easily support both polarizations with low propagation loss.A combination of a 3D PIC and a 2D PIC designed and fabricated for OAM applications has successfully multiplexed and demultiplexed 15 OAM states to demonstrate polarization-diversified SDM coherent optical communications using multiple OAM states.Coherent excitation of multi-ring OAM states can allow highly scalable SDM utilizing Laguerre–Gaussian modes or linearly polarized(LP)modes.The preliminary fabrication of multi-ring OAM multiplexers and demultiplexers using the multilayer 3D PIC method and the ULI 3D PIC method has also been pursued.Large-scale(for example,16×16 optical phased array)3D PICs fabricated with the ULI technique have been demonstrated.Through these examples,we show that heterogeneous 2D/3D photonic integration retains the advantages of 2D PICs and 3D waveguides,which can potentially benefit many other applications.

Tunable optical filter using second-order micro-ring resonator

In this paper, we design and fabricate a silicon integrated optical filter consisting of two cascaded micro-ring resonators and two straight waveguides. Two micro-heaters are fabricated on the top of two micro-rings respectively, which are employed to modulate the micro-rings to perform the function of a tunable optical filter by the thermo–optic effect. The static response test indicates that the extinction ratio and 3-d B bandwidth are 29.01 d B and 0.21 nm respectively, the dynamic response test indicates that the 10%–90% rise and 90%–10% fall time of the filter are 16 μs and 12 μs, respectively,which can meet the requirements of optical communication and information processing. Finally, the power consumption of the device is also characterized, and the total power consumption is about 9.43 m W/nm, which has been improved efficiently.

Full-vectorial analysis of optical waveguides by the finite difference method based on polynomial interpolation

Based on the polynomial interpolation, a new finite difference （FD） method in solving the full-vectorial guidedmodes for step-index optical waveguides is proposed. The discontinuities of the normal components of the electric field across abrupt dielectric interfaces are considered in the absence of the limitations of scalar and semivectorial approximation, and the present PD scheme can be applied to both uniform and non-uniform mesh grids. The modal propagation constants and field distributions for buried rectangular waveguides and optical rib waveguides are presented. The hybrid nature of the vectorial modes is demonstrated and the singular behaviours of the minor field components in the corners are observed. Moreover, solutions are in good agreement with those published early, which tests the validity of the present approach.