Search

In ground-based astronomy, the ability to couple light into single-mode fibers (SMFs) is limited by atmospheric turbulence, which prohibits the use of many astrophotonic instruments. We propose a silicon-on-insulator photonic chip capable of coherently coupling the out-of-phase beamlets from the subapertures of a telescope pupil into an SMF. The photonic integrated circuit (PIC) consists of an array of grating couplers that are used to inject light from free space into single-mode waveguides on the chip. Metallic heaters modulate the refractive index of a coiled section of the waveguides, facilitating the co-phasing of the propagating modes. The phased beamlets can then be coherently combined to efficiently deliver the light to an output SMF. In an adaptive optics (AO) system, the phase corrector acts as a deformable mirror (DM) commanded by a controller that takes phase measurements from a wavefront sensor (WFS). We present experimental results for the PIC tested on an AO testbed and compare the performance to simulations., Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables, submitted to SPIE Adaptive Optics Systems IX

Optical beams and starlight distorted by atmospheric turbulence can be corrected with adaptive optics systems to enable efficient coupling into single-mode fibers. Deformable mirrors, used to flatten the wavefront in astronomical telescopes, are costly, sensitive, and complex mechanical components that require careful calibration to enable high-quality imaging in astronomy, microscopy, and vision science. They are also impractical to deploy in large numbers for non-imaging applications like free-space optical communication. Here, we propose a photonic integrated c rcuit capable of spatially sampling the wavefront collected by the telescope and co-phasing the subapertures to maximize the flux delivered to an output single-mode fiber as the integrated photonic implementation of a deformable mirror. We present the results of end-to-end simulations to quantify the performance of the proposed photonic solution under varying atmospheric conditions toward realizing an adaptive optics system without a deformable mirror for free-space optical receivers., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, to be published in Optics Express. Corresponding author: Momen Diab (momen.diab@utoronto.ca)

Power splitters play a crucial role in virtually all photonic circuits, enabling precise control of on-chip signal distribution. However, state-of-the-art solutions typically present trade-offs in terms of loss, bandwidth, and fabrication robustness, especially when targeting multimode operation. Here, we present a novel multimode 3-dB power splitter based on a symmetric Y-junction assisted by subwavelength grating metamaterials. The inclusion of the metamaterial structure circumvents the practical limitations of conventional Y-junction tips and realizes smooth modal transitions. Simulations for a standard 220-nm-thick silicon-on-insulator platform predict minimal excess loss (< 0.2 dB) for the fundamental and the first-order transverse-electric modes over an ultra-broad 700 nm bandwidth (1300-2000 nm). For the fundamental transverse-magnetic mode, losses are less than 0.3 dB in the 1300-1800 nm range. Experimental measurements validate these predictions in the 1430-1630 nm wavelength range, demonstrating losses < 0.4 dB for all three modes, even in the presence of fabrication deviations of up to \pm 10 nm. We believe that this device is suitable for the implementation of advanced photonic systems requiring high-performance distribution of optical signals.

On-chip Brillouin scattering plays a key role in numerous applications in the domain of signal processing and microwave photonics due to the coherent bidirectional coupling between near-infrared optical signals and GHz mechanical modes, which enables selective amplification and attenuation with remarkably narrow linewidths, in the kHz to MHz range. Subwavelength periodic nanostructures provide precise control of the propagation of light and sound in silicon photonic circuits, key to maximize the efficiency of Brillouin interactions. Here, we propose and demonstrate a new subwavelength waveguide geometry allowing independent control of optical and mechanical modes. Two silicon lattices are combined, one with a subwavelength period for the light and one with a total bandgap for the sound, to confine optical and mechanical modes, respectively. Based on this approach, we experimentally demonstrate optomechanical coupling between near-infrared optical modes and GHz mechanical modes with with 5-8 MHz linewidth and a coupling strength of GB = 1360 1/(W m). A Stokes gain of 1.5 dB, and anti-Stoke loss of -2 dB are observed for a 6 mm-long waveguide with 35.5 mW of input power. We show tuning of the mechanical frequency between 5 and 8 GHz by geometrical optimization, without loss of the optomechanical coupling strength.

Perfectly vertical grating couplers leveraging metamaterials can achieve both high coupling efficiency and minimal back reflection. The fabricability of these designs, with segmentations in both the longitudinal and transverse dimensions, hinges on the minimum feature size offered by cutting-edge fabrication technologies. In this work we present both numerical and experimental evidence that high performance devices can be obtained while using large transverse segmentation periods of up to 650 nm, thereby increasing the critical feature sizes. For single-step etched couplers produced on the 220 nm silicon-on-insulator platform, we demonstrate coupling efficiencies of nearly 50% in the C-band and remarkably low back reflections of -22 dB at zero-degree incidence angle. Notably, the duty cycles used in our optimized designs deviate significantly from those predicted by traditional effective medium models, even for small periods. Our findings promise to expand the range of optical properties achievable in metamaterials and offer fresh insights into the fine-tuning of nanophotonic devices.

Silicon photonic wavefront phase-tilt sensors for wavefront monitoring using surface coupling grating arrays are demonstrated. The first design employs the intrinsic angle dependence of the grating coupling efficiency to determine local wavefront tilt, with a measured sensitivity of 7 dB/degree. A second design connects four gratings in an interferometric waveguide circuit to determine incident wavefront phase variation across the sensor area. In this device, one fringe spacing corresponds to approximately 2 degree wavefront tilt change. These sensor elements can sample a wavefront incident on the chip surface without the use of bulk optic elements, fiber arrays, or imaging arrays. Both sensor elements are less than 60 um across, and can be combined into larger arrays to monitor wavefront tilt and distortion across an image or pupil plane in adaptive optics systems for free space optical communications, astronomy and beam pointing applications.

Silicon photonic integrated circuits routinely require 3-dB optical power dividers with minimal losses, small footprints, ultra-wide bandwidths, and relaxed manufacturing tolerances to distribute light across the chip and as a key building block to form more complex devices. Symmetric Y-junctions stand out among other power splitting devices owing to their wavelength-independent response and a straightforward design. Yet, the limited resolution of current fabrication methods results in a minimum feature size (MFS) at the tip between the two Y-junction arms that leads to significant losses for the fundamental mode. Here we propose to circumvent this limitation by leveraging subwavelength metamaterials in a new type of ultra-broadband and fabrication-tolerant Y-junction. An exhaustive experimental study over a 260 nm bandwidth (1420-1680 nm) shows excess loss below 0.3 dB for the fundamental transverse-electric mode (TE0) for a high-resolution lithographic process (MFS about 50 nm) and less than 0.5 dB for a fabrication resolution of 100 nm. Subwavelength Y-junctions with deterministically induced errors of plus-minus 10 nm further demonstrated robust fabrication tolerances. Moreover, the splitter exhibits excess loss lower than 1 dB for the first-order transverse-electric mode (TE1) within a 100 nm bandwidth (1475-1575 nm), using high-resolution lithography.

We propose and demonstrate subwavelength grating (SWG) metamaterial waveguides and ring resonators on a silicon nitride platform for the first time. The SWG waveguide is engineered such that a large overlap of 53% of the Bloch mode with the top cladding material is achieved, demonstrating excellent potential for applications in evanescent field sensing and light amplification. The devices, which have critical dimensions greater than 100 nm, are fabricated using a commercial rapid turn-around silicon nitride prototyping foundry process using electron beam lithography. Experimental characterization of the fabricated device reveals excellent ring resonator internal quality factor (2.11x10^5) and low propagation loss (~1.5 dB/cm) in the C-band, a significant improvement of both parameters compared to silicon based SWG ring resonators. These results demonstrate the promising prospects of SWG metamaterial structures for silicon nitride based photonic integrated circuits., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Laser & Photonics Reviews for publication

Optical antennas are a fundamental element in optical phased arrays (OPA) and free-space optical interconnects. An outstanding challenge in optical antenna design lies in achieving high radiation efficiency, ultra-compact footprint and broad radiation angle simultaneously, as required for dense 2D OPAs with a broad steering range. Here we demonstrate a fundamentally new concept of a nanophotonic antenna based on near-field phase-engineering. By introducing a specific near-field phase factor in the Fraunhofer transformation, the far-field beam is widened beyond the diffraction limit for a given aperture size. We use transversally interleaved subwavelength grating nanostructures to control the near-field phase. The antenna reaches a radiation efficiency of 82%, a compact footprint of 3.1 um * 1.75 um and an ultra-broad far-field beam width of 52{\deg} and 62{\deg} in the longitudinal and transversal direction, respectively. This unprecedented design performance is achieved with a single-etch grating nanostructure in a 300-nm SOI platform., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

Autoencoders (AE) provide a useful method for nonlinear dimensionality reduction but are ill-suited for low data regimes. Conversely, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is data-efficient but is limited to linear dimensionality reduction, posing a problem when data exhibits inherent nonlinearity. This presents a challenge in various scientific and engineering domains such as the nanophotonic component design, where data exhibits nonlinear features while being expensive to obtain due to costly real measurements or resource-consuming solutions of partial differential equations. To address this difficulty, we propose a technique that harnesses the best of both worlds: an autoencoder that leverages PCA to perform well on scarce nonlinear data. Specifically, we outline a numerically robust PCA-based initialization of AE, which, together with the parameterized ReLU activation function, allows the training process to start from an exact PCA solution and improve upon it. A synthetic example is presented first to study the effects of data nonlinearity and size on the performance of the proposed method. We then evaluate our method on several nanophotonic component design problems where obtaining useful data is expensive. To demonstrate universality, we also apply it to tasks in other scientific domains: a benchmark breast cancer dataset and a gene expression dataset. We show that our proposed approach is substantially better than both PCA and randomly initialized AE in the majority of low-data regime cases we consider, or at least is comparable to the best of either of the other two methods.

We present a comparative experimental study of three silicon photonic echelle grating demultiplexers that are integrated with a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) launch structure. By appropriate choice of the MZI configuration, the temperature induced shift of the demultiplexer channel wavelengths can be suppressed (athermal) or enhanced (super-thermal), or be controlled by an on-chip micro-heater. The latter two configurations allow the channel wavelengths to be actively tuned using lower power than possible by temperature tuning a conventional echelle demultiplexer. In the athermal configuration, the measured channel spectral shift is reduced to less than 10 pm/C, compared to the 83 pm/C shift for an unmodified echelle device. In super-thermal operation an enhanced channel temperature tuning rate of 170 pm/C is achieved. Finally, by modulating the MZI phase with an on-chip heater, the demultiplexer channels can be actively tuned to correct for ambient temperature fluctuations up to 20 C, using a drive current of less than 20 mA., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures

Integrated mid-infrared micro-spectrometers have a great potential for applications in environmental monitoring and space exploration. Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) is a promising platform to tackle this integration challenge, due to its unique capability for large volume and low-cost production of ultra-compact photonic circuits. However, the use of SOI in the mid-infrared is restricted by the strong absorption of the buried oxide layer for wavelengths beyond 4 {\mu}m. Here, we overcome this limitation by utilizing metamaterial-cladded suspended silicon waveguides to implement a spatial heterodyne Fourier-transform (SHFT) spectrometer operating near 5.5{\mu}m wavelength. The metamaterial-cladded geometry allows removal of the buried oxide layer, yielding measured propagation loss below 2 dB/cm between 5.3{\mu}m and 5.7{\mu}m wavelengths. The SHFT spectrometer comprises 19 Mach-Zehnder interferometers with a maximum arm length imbalance of 200 {\mu}m, achieving a measured spectral resolution of 13cm-1 and a free-spectral range of 100 cm-1 near 5.5{\mu}m wavelength.

We present a novel remote gas detection and identification technique based on correlation spectroscopy with a piezoelectric tunable fibre-optic Fabry-P\'erot filter. We show that the spectral correlation amplitude between the filter transmission window and gas absorption features is related to the gas absorption optical depth, and that different gases can be distinguished from one another using their correlation signal phase. Using an observed telluric-corrected, high-resolution near-infrared spectrum of Venus, we show via simulation that the Doppler shift of gases lines can be extracted from the phase of the lock-in signal using low-cost, compact, and lightweight fibre-optic components with lock-in amplification to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. This correlation spectroscopy technique has applications in the detection and radial velocity determination of faint spectral features in astronomy and remote sensing. We experimentally demonstrate remote CO2 detection system using a lock-in amplifier, fibre-optic Fabry-P\'erot filter, and single channel photodiode.

Compact and efficient optical antennas are fundamental components for many applications, including high-density fiber-chip coupling and optical phased arrays. Here we present the design of grating-based micro-antennas with perfectly vertical emission in the 300-nm silicon-on-insulator platform. We leverage a methodology combining adjoint optimization and machine learning dimensionality reduction to efficiently map the multiparameter design space of the antennas, analyse a large number of relevant performance metrics, carry out the required multi-objective optimization, and discover high performance designs. Using a one-step apodized grating we achieve a vertical upward diffraction efficiency of almost 92% with a 3.6 {\mu}m-long antenna. When coupled with an ultra-high numerical aperture fiber, the antenna exhibits a coupling efficiency of more than 81% (-0.9 dB) and a 1-dB bandwidth of almost 158 nm. The reflection generated by the perfectly vertical antenna is smaller than -20 dB on a 200-nm bandwidth centered at {\lambda} = 1550 nm.

Absorption spectroscopy is widely used in sensing and astronomy to understand molecular compositions on microscopic to cosmological scales. However, typical dispersive spectroscopic techniques require multichannel detection, fundamentally limiting the ability to detect extremely weak signals when compared to direct photometric methods. We report the realization of direct spectral molecular detection using a silicon nanophotonic waveguide resonator, obviating dispersive spectral acquisition. We use a thermally tunable silicon ring resonator with a transmission spectrum matched and cross-correlated to the quasi-periodic vibronic absorption lines of hydrogen cyanide. We show that the correlation peak amplitude is proportional to the number of overlapping ring resonances and gas lines, and that molecular specificity is obtained from the phase of the correlation signal in a single detection channel. Our results demonstrate on-chip correlation spectroscopy that is less restricted by the signal-to-noise penalty of other spectroscopic approaches, enabling the detection of faint spectral signatures.

Spectral pattern recognition is used to measure temperature and generate calibrated wavelength/frequency combs using a single silicon waveguide ring resonator. The ring generates two incommensurate interleaving TE and TM spectral combs that shift independently with temperature to create a spectral pattern that is unique at every temperature. Following an initial calibration, the ring temperature can be determined by recognizing the spectral resonance pattern, and as a consequence the wavelength of every resonance is also known. Two methods of pattern based temperature retrieval are presented. In the first method, the ring is locked to a previously determined temperature set-point defined by the coincidence of only two specific TE and TM cavity modes. Based on a prior calibration at the set-point, the ring temperature and hence all resonance wavelengths are then known and the resulting comb can be used as a wavelength calibration reference. In this configuration, all reference comb wavelengths have been reproduced within a 5 pm accuracy across an 80 nm range by using an on-chip micro-heater to tune the ring. For more general photonic thermometry, a spectral correlation algorithm is developed to recognize a resonance pattern across a 30 nm wide spectral window and thereby determine ring temperature continuously to 50 mK accuracy. The correlation method is extended to simultaneously determine temperature and to identify and correct for wavelength calibration errors in the interrogating light source. The temperature and comb wavelength accuracy is limited primarily by the linewidth of the ring resonances, with accuracy and resolution scaling with the ring quality factor., Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures

An InAs-on-InP quantum dash buried heterostructure laser and silicon chip optimized for mutual integration by direct facet-to-facet coupling have achieved -1.2 dB coupling efficiency, with coupled laser RIN of -150 dB/Hz and 152 kHz linewidth.

Optical phase shifters are extensively used in integrated optics not only for telecom and datacom applications, but also for sensors and quantum computing. While various active solutions have been demonstrated, progress in passive phase shifters is still lacking. Here, we present a new type of ultra-broadband 90{\deg} phase shifter, which exploits the anisotropy and dispersion engineering in subwavelength metamaterial waveguides. Our Floquet-Bloch calculations predict a phase shift error below $\pm$1.7{\deg} over an unprecedented operation range from 1.35 $\mu$m to 1.75 $\mu$m, i.e. 400 nm bandwidth covering the E, S, C, L and U telecommunication bands. The flat spectral response of our phase shifter is maintained even in the presence of fabrication errors up to $\pm$20 nm, showing greater robustness than conventional structures. Our device was experimentally demonstrated using standard 220-nm-thick SOI wafers, showing a fourfold reduction in the phase variation compared to conventional phase shifters within the 145 nm wavelength range of our measurement setup. The proposed subwavelength engineered phase shifter paves the way for novel photonic integrated circuits with an ultra-broadband performance.

Nanophotonics finds ever broadening applications requiring complex component designs with a large number of parameters to be simultaneously optimized. Recent methodologies employing optimization algorithms commonly focus on a single design objective, provide isolated designs, and do not describe how the design parameters influence the device behaviour. Here we propose and demonstrate a machine-learning-based approach to map and characterize the multi-parameter design space of nanophotonic components. Pattern recognition is used to reveal the relationship between an initial sparse set of optimized designs through a significant reduction in the number of characterizing parameters. This defines a design sub-space of lower dimensionality that can be mapped faster by orders of magnitude than the original design space. As a result, multiple performance criteria are clearly visualized, revealing the interplay of the design parameters, highlighting performance and structural limitations, and inspiring new design ideas. This global perspective on high-dimensional design problems represents a major shift in how modern nanophotonic design is approached and provides a powerful tool to explore complexity in next-generation devices.

High-performance optical beam splitters are of fundamental importance for the development of advanced silicon photonics integrated circuits. However, due to the high refractive index contrast of the silicon-on-insulator platform, state of the art Si splitters are hampered by trade-offs in bandwidth, polarization dependence and sensitivity to fabrication errors. Here, we present a new strategy that exploits modal engineering in slotted waveguides to overcome these limitations, enabling ultra-wideband polarization-insensitive optical power splitters, with relaxed fabrication tolerances. The proposed splitter relies on a single-mode slot waveguide which is transformed into two strip waveguides by a symmetric taper, yielding equal power splitting. Based on this concept, we experimentally demonstrate -3$\pm$0.5 dB polarization-independent transmission in an unprecedented 390 nm bandwidth (1260 - 1650 nm), even in the presence of waveguide width deviations as large as $\pm$25 nm.

The large transparency window of silicon, covering the 1.1 um 8 um wavelength range, makes it a promising platform for the implementation of photothermal-based absorption spectrometers. These devices indirectly sense absorption in the mid-infrared (MIR) by using near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths, thereby enabling the realization of MIR absorption spectrometers without the need for MIR photodetectors. Nevertheless, due to their comparatively large index contrast and cross-sections, MIR Si strip waveguides are multi-mode at NIR wavelengths, hindering device implementation. Here we present, for the first time, an integrated Bragg grating waveguide filter for hybrid near- and mid-infrared operation. Specifically, the filter is implemented in a single-etch suspended silicon corrugated waveguide with an effectively single-mode operation in NIR region for a waveguide cross-section as large as 0.5 um x 1.1 um. At the same time, the waveguide supports single-mode propagation in MIR region. We demonstrate a long-period waveguide Bragg grating yielding a sharp third-order Bragg resonance for the fundamental waveguide mode and radiating the higher order modes. We experimentally demonstrate a notch filter with a 4nm bandwidth and 40 dB extinction ratio with a temperature-dependent Bragg wavelength shift of 70pm/K.

Multimode interference couplers are a fundamental building block in many integrated photonic systems, ranging from high-speed coherent receivers to quantum splitters. However, their basic structure has remained fundamentally unchanged for almost four decades, limiting their size and operation bandwidth. Using sub-wavelength metamaterials, photonic devices with break-through size and performance have been recently reported. Leveraging the inherent anisotropy of these structures, here we derive a semi-analytic expression that enables the design of compact and ultra broadband multimode interference couplers. We experimentally demonstrate virtually perfect operation over a bandwidth in excess of 300nm (500nm in simulation), for a device three times shorter than its conventional counterpart, making this the most broadband multimode interference coupler reported to date. These results will enable ultra broadband integrated systems for applications in communications and sensing., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures