Controlling the helicity of light by electrical magnetization switching.

Controlling the intensity of emitted light and charge current is the basis of transferring and processing information1. By contrast, robust information storage and magnetic random-access memories are implemented using the spin of the carrier and the associated magnetization in ferromagnets2. The missing link between the respective disciplines of photonics, electronics and spintronics is to modulate the circular polarization of the emitted light, rather than its intensity, by electrically controlled magnetization. Here we demonstrate that this missing link is established at room temperature and zero applied magnetic field in light-emitting diodes2-7, through the transfer of angular momentum between photons, electrons and ferromagnets. With spin-orbit torque8-11, a charge current generates also a spin current to electrically switch the magnetization. This switching determines the spin orientation of injected carriers into semiconductors, in which the transfer of angular momentum from the electron spin to photon controls the circular polarization of the emitted light2. The spin-photon conversion with the nonvolatile control of magnetization opens paths to seamlessly integrate information transfer, processing and storage. Our results provide substantial advances towards electrically controlled ultrafast modulation of circular polarization and spin injection with magnetization dynamics for the next-generation information and communication technology12, including space-light data transfer. The same operating principle in scaled-down structures or using two-dimensional materials will enable transformative opportunities for quantum information processing with spin-controlled single-photon sources, as well as for implementing spin-dependent time-resolved spectroscopies.

Spatially resolved multimode excitation for smooth supercontinuum generation in a SiN waveguide.

We propose a method of supercontinuum light generation enhanced by multimode excitation in a precisely dispersion-engineered deuterated SiN (SiN:D) waveguide. Although a regularly designed SiN-based nonlinear optical waveguide exhibits anomalous dispersion with the fundamental and first-order multimode operation, the center-symmetric light pumping at the input edge has so far inhibited the full potential of the nonlinearity of SiN-based materials. On the basis of numerical analysis and simulation for the SiN:D waveguide, we intentionally applied spatial position offsets to excite the fundamental and higher-order modes to realize bandwidth broadening with flatness. Using this method, we achieved an SNR improvement of up to 18 dB at a wavelength of 0.6 µm with an offset of about 1 µm in the Y-axis direction and found that the contribution was related to the presence of dispersive waves due to the excitation of TE10, and TE01 modes.

On-chip bacterial foraging training in silicon photonic circuits for projection-enabled nonlinear classification.

On-chip training remains a challenging issue for photonic devices to implement machine learning algorithms. Most demonstrations only implement inference in photonics for offline-trained neural network models. On the other hand, artificial neural networks are one of the most deployed algorithms, while other machine learning algorithms such as supporting vector machine (SVM) remain unexplored in photonics. Here, inspired by SVM, we propose to implement projection-based classification principle by constructing nonlinear mapping functions in silicon photonic circuits and experimentally demonstrate on-chip bacterial foraging training for this principle to realize single Boolean logics, combinational Boolean logics, and Iris classification with ~96.7 - 98.3 per cent accuracy. This approach can offer comparable performances to artificial neural networks for various benchmarks even with smaller scales and without leveraging traditional activation functions, showing scalability advantage. Natural-intelligence-inspired bacterial foraging offers efficient and robust on-chip training, and this work paves a way for photonic circuits to perform nonlinear classification.

Direct f-3f self-referencing using an integrated silicon-nitride waveguide.

We have achieved the simultaneous generation of a 2.6-octave-wide supercontinuum (SC) spectrum over 400-2500 nm and third-harmonic light solely by a dispersion-controlled silicon-nitride waveguide (SiNW). To increase the visible intensity of the SC light component, we fabricated low-loss 5-mm-long deuterated SiNWs with spot-size converters by low-temperature deposition. We succeeded in measuring the carrier-envelope-offset (CEO) signal with a 34-dB signal-to-noise ratio because this short deuterated SiNW provides a large temporal overlap between the f and 3f components. In addition, we have demonstrated this method of CEO locking at telecommunications wavelengths with f-3f self-referencing generated solely by the SiNW without the use of highly nonlinear fiber and an additional nonlinear crystal. Compared with the method of CEO locking with a highly nonlinear fiber and a standard f-2f self-referencing interferometer, this method is not only simple and compact but also stable.

Simple and fully CMOS-compatible low-loss fiber coupling structure for a silicon photonics platform.

A simple low-loss fiber coupling structure consisting of a Si inverted-taper waveguide and a 435 nm wide and 290 nm thick SiN waveguide was fabricated with fully complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible processes. The small SiN waveguide can expand to the optical field corresponding to a fiber with a mode-field diameter of 4.1 µm. The fiber-to-chip coupling losses were 0.25 and 0.51 dB/facet for quasi-TE and quasi-TM modes, respectively, at a 1550 nm wavelength. Polarization-dependent losses of the conversion in the Si-to-SiN waveguide transition and the fiber-to-chip coupling were less than 0.3 and 0.5 dB, respectively, in the wavelength range of 1520-1580 nm.

Arbitrary reconfiguration of universal silicon photonic circuits by bacteria foraging algorithm to achieve reconfigurable photonic digital-to-analog conversion.

Reconfigurable/reprogrammable universal silicon photonic circuits represent a paradigm shift in designing photonic devices. However, it is very challenging to perform adaptive arbitrary reconfiguration when the high-dimensional solution of phase distribution cannot be explicitly determined, especially when there are random initial phase errors, which hinder the implementation of novel potential functions in universal circuits. This work presents an arbitrary black-box reconfiguration for universal circuits with random phase errors by a bacteria-foraging algorithm and unlocks a novel function of arbitrary-port-and-arbitrary-bit-resolution reconfigurable 6-bit photonic digital-to-analog conversion. This work offers a general and efficient method to ease multipurpose reconfiguration for universal silicon photonic circuits.

Interferometric autocorrelation of ultrafast optical pulses in silicon sub-micrometer p-i-n waveguides.

We investigated the high-sensitivity interferometric autocorrelation of ultrafast optical pulses utilizing two-photon absorption in sub-micrometer silicon p-i-n waveguides. The autocorrelation sensitivities were evaluated to be about 0.5 and 4.5 × 10-8 W2 for 1- and 0.5-mm devices, respectively. Such sensitivities are about 100 times higher than the traditional two-photon conductivity photodetectors in commercial autocorrelators; thus favor weak pulse characterization. We comprehensively studied the interferometric autocorrelation performances by the experiment and FDTD (finite-difference time-domain) simulation. The pulse energy dependences of measured autocorrelation photocurrents and pulse widths were well explained by the simulation with the free carrier absorption and free carrier plasma effect considered. The autocorrelation error tends to occur if the pulse energy is high enough to cause strong free carrier effects and the threshold pulse energy for error occurrence is increased for shorter devices, but accurate autocorrelation measurement was achieved for sub-Watts pulses at which the influences of free carrier effects on interferometric autocorrelation was negligible. The minimum applicable range of pulse widths was estimated from waveguide dispersion analysis to be ~0.09 and 0.13 ps with a 10% target error for 0.5-mm and 1-mm devices, respectively. The interferometric autocorrelation in sub-micrometer silicon p-i-n waveguides is promising as a monolithic photonic device for on-chip monitor and diagnostics of weak ultrafast pulses.

Silicon traveling-wave Mach-Zehnder modulator under distributed-bias driving.

The silicon traveling-wave (TW) Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) is one of the most important devices in silicon photonic transceivers for high-speed optical interconnects. Its phase shifter utilizes carrier depletion of pn diodes for high speed, but suffers low modulation efficiency. Extensive efforts have been made on pre-fabrication optimizations, including waveguides, doping, and electrodes to enhance high-frequency modulation efficiency. Instead, we here propose an adaptive post-fabrication distributed-bias driving method that enables 20%∼30% high-frequency efficiency enhancement at both 10 and 25 Gbps without doing any optimizations for a silicon TW-MZM. This method explores the bias nonlinearity of index modulation which, to the best of our knowledge, is utilized for the first time in driving silicon modulators to improve the efficiency. We demonstrated the viability of this adaptive driving concept to achieve better performance, and this Letter could open new avenues for silicon traveling-wave modulator design and performance trade-off.

High-efficiency strip-loaded waveguide based silicon Mach-Zehnder modulator with vertical p-n junction phase shifter.

We demonstrate a silicon Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) based on hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) strip-loaded waveguides on a silicon on insulator (SOI) platform, which can be fabricated by using a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible process without half etching of the SOI layer. Constructing a vertical p-n junction in a flat etchless SOI layer provides superior controllability and uniformity of carrier profiles. Moreover, the waveguide structure based on a thin a-Si:H strip line can be fabricated easily and precisely. Thanks to a large overlap between the depletion region and optical field in the SOI layer with a vertical p-n junction, the MZM provides 0.80- to 1.86-Vcm modulation efficiency and a 12.1- to 16.9-dBV loss-efficiency product, besides guaranteeing a 3-dB bandwidth of about 17 GHz and 28-Gbps high-speed operation. The αVπL is considerably lower than that of conventional high-speed modulators.

Completely CMOS compatible SiN-waveguide-based fiber coupling structure for Si wire waveguides.

For Si wire waveguides, we designed a highly efficient fiber coupling structure consisting of a Si inverted taper waveguide and a CMOS-compatible thin SiN waveguide with an SiO2 spacer inserted between them. By using a small SiN waveguide with a 310 nm-square core, the optical field can be expanded to correspond to a fiber with a 4.0-µm mode field diameter. A coupled waveguide system with the SiN waveguide and Si taper waveguide can provide low-loss and low-polarization-dependent mode conversion. Both losses in fiber-SiN waveguide coupling and SiN-Si waveguide mode conversion are no more than 1 dB in a wide wavelength bandwidth from 1.36 µm to 1.65 µm. Through a detailed analysis of the effective refractive indices in the coupled waveguide system, we can understand mode conversion accurately and also derive guidelines for reducing the polarization dependence and for shortening device length.

Optical autocorrelation performance of silicon wire p-i-n waveguides utilizing the enhanced two-photon absorption.

Optical autocorrelation accuracy was for the first time analyzed for the silicon waveguide based autocorrelators utilizing two-photon absorption (TPA) under various short pulse conditions by numerical simulation. As for autocorrelation operation in the sub-µm silicon p-i-n rib waveguides on the 220 nm SOI (silicon on insulator) wafers, the autocorrelation error of pulse width measurement gradually increases with the increase of the peak power for both Gaussian and hyperbolic secant pulses due to the influence of free-carrier absorption (FCA). For the same pulse type, the relative error is independent of the input pulse width; however different pulse type has different peak power dependency of the accuracy. It was verified that this thin rib waveguide has a TPA responsivity >60 times higher than the thick rib waveguides and the correct pulse width can be measured with a <1% relative error for characterizing ps/sub-ps short pulses of sub-watt peak powers by utilizing the silicon wire p-i-n waveguides as the autocorrelator detector.

Ultra-compact 32 × 32 strictly-non-blocking Si-wire optical switch with fan-out LGA interposer.

We demonstrate a 32 × 32 path-independent-insertion-loss optical path switch that integrates 1024 thermooptic Mach-Zehnder switches and 961 intersections on a small, 11 × 25 mm2 die. The switch is fabricated on a 300-mm-diameter silicon-on-insulator wafer by a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor-compatible process with advanced ArF immersion lithography. For reliable electrical packaging, the switch chip is flip-chip bonded to a ceramic interposer that arranges the electrodes in a 0.5-mm pitch land grid array. The on-chip loss is measured to be 15.8 ± 1.0 dB, and successful switching is demonstrated for digital-coherent 43-Gb/s QPSK signals. The total crosstalk of the switch is estimated to be less than -20 dB at the center wavelength of 1545 nm. The bandwidth narrowing caused by dimensional errors that arise during fabrication is discussed.

Ultra-high-extinction-ratio 2 × 2 silicon optical switch with variable splitter.

We demonstrate a record-high extinction-ratio of 50.4 dB in a 2 × 2 silicon Mach-Zehnder switch equipped with a variable splitter as the front 3-dB splitter. The variable splitter is adjusted to compensate for the splitting-ratio mismatch between the front and rear 3-dB splitters. The high extinction ratio does not rely on waveguide crossings and meets a strong demand in applications to multiport circuit switches. Large fabrication tolerance will make the high extinction ratio compatible with a volume production with standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor fabrication facilities.

Tilted MMI crossings based on silicon wire waveguide.

Waveguide crossings employing tilted MMI structures on silicon wire waveguide are proposed and demonstrated. Intersecting angle of the two MMI waveguides is optimized for low crosstalk. The optimization is carried out with input polarizations specified. On the fabricated MMI crossings, crosstalk lower than -38 dB in the C-band was experimentally confirmed. A novel polarization-insensitive crossing based on a diversity circuit was fabricated. Crosstalk lower than -30 dB in the C-band is demonstrated.

Ultra-compact 8 × 8 strictly-non-blocking Si-wire PILOSS switch.

We report on a path-independent insertion-loss (PILOSS) 8 × 8 matrix switch based on Si-wire waveguides, which has a record-small footprint of 3.5 × 2.4 mm2. The PILOSS switch consists of 64 thermooptic Mach-Zehnder (MZ) switches and 49 low-crosstalk intersections. Each of the MZ switches and intersections employs directional couplers, which enable the composition of a low loss PILOSS switch. We demonstrate successful switching of digital-coherent 43-Gbps QPSK signal.

Compact 2 × 2 polarization-diversity Si-wire switch.

A polarization-independent 2 × 2 switch based on silicon-wire waveguides has been realized with a compact size of 600 × 500 µm². Polarization-independent operation was achieved with a polarization-diversity technique which implements polarization splitters, TE-TM intersections, and Mach-Zehnder switches. The extinction ratios of the 2 × 2 switch for TE, TM, and a mixed polarization at a wavelength of 1550 nm were measured to be larger than 30 dB, 25 dB, and 30 dB, respectively. The measured switching powers for the TE and TM polarizations were 25 and 55 mW, respectively. The measured polarization-dependent loss was lower than 1 dB. The differential group delay (DGD) between the TE and TM modes was also evaluated using the Mueller matrix method, which was in good agreement with the values estimated from the path lengths for each mode. A path-length-compensated switch was fabricated, whose DGDs for all paths were indeed as small as ~2 ps, mainly from the access waveguides. The switch could provide an important route to develop ultra-compact polarization-independent integrated circuits based on silicon-wire waveguides.