Optoelectronic tweezers: a versatile toolbox for nano-/micro-manipulation.

The rapid development of micromanipulation technologies has opened exciting new opportunities for the actuation, selection and assembly of a variety of non-biological and biological nano/micro-objects for applications ranging from microfabrication, cell analysis, tissue engineering, biochemical sensing, to nano/micro-machines. To date, a variety of precise, flexible and high-throughput manipulation techniques have been developed based on different physical fields. Among them, optoelectronic tweezers (OET) is a state-of-art technique that combines light stimuli with electric field together by leveraging the photoconductive effect of semiconductor materials. Herein, the behavior of micro-objects can be directly controlled by inducing the change of electric fields on demand in an optical manner. Relying on this light-induced electrokinetic effect, OET offers tremendous advantages in micromanipulation such as programmability, flexibility, versatility, high-throughput and ease of integration with other characterization systems, thus showing impressive performance compared to those of many other manipulation techniques. A lot of research on OET have been reported in recent years and the technology has developed rapidly in various fields of science and engineering. This work provides a comprehensive review of the OET technology, including its working mechanisms, experimental setups, applications in non-biological and biological scenarios, technology commercialization and future perspectives.

A large-scale microelectromechanical-systems-based silicon photonics LiDAR.

Three-dimensional (3D) imaging sensors allow machines to perceive, map and interact with the surrounding world1. The size of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) devices is often limited by mechanical scanners. Focal plane array-based 3D sensors are promising candidates for solid-state LiDARs because they allow electronic scanning without mechanical moving parts. However, their resolutions have been limited to 512 pixels or smaller2. In this paper, we report on a 16,384-pixel LiDAR with a wide field of view (FoV, 70° × 70°), a fine addressing resolution (0.6° × 0.6°), a narrow beam divergence (0.050° × 0.049°) and a random-access beam addressing with sub-MHz operation speed. The 128 × 128-element focal plane switch array (FPSA) of grating antennas and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-actuated optical switches are monolithically integrated on a 10 × 11-mm2 silicon photonic chip, where a 128 × 96 subarray is wire bonded and tested in experiments. 3D imaging with a distance resolution of 1.7 cm is achieved with frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) ranging in monostatic configuration. The FPSA can be mass-produced in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) foundries, which will allow ubiquitous 3D sensors for use in autonomous cars, drones, robots and smartphones.

Efficient spontaneous emission by metal-dielectric antennas; antenna Purcell factor explained.

The rate of spontaneous emission from an optical emitter can be greatly enhanced using a metallic optical antenna at the penalty of efficiency. In this paper we propose a metal-dielectric antenna that eliminates the tradeoff between spontaneous emission enhancement and radiative efficiency by using nanoscopic dielectric structures at the antenna tips. This tradeoff occurs due to Ohmic loss and is further exacerbated by electron surface collisions. We find that our metal-dielectric antenna can enhance spontaneous emission by a factor 5 × 105 with efficiency = 70%, greatly exceeding the radiative efficiency of a purely metallic antenna with similar enhancement. Moreover, the metal-dielectric antenna design strategy is naturally amenable to short-distance optical communications applications. We go on to discuss the Purcell effect within the context of antenna enhancement. Metallic optical antennas are best analyzed with conventional antenna circuit models, but if the Purcell enhancement were to be employed, we provide the effective mode volume, Veff = (3/4π2)2d2λ(λ/l)5, that would be needed.

Inverse design optimization for efficient coupling of an electrically injected optical antenna-LED to a single-mode waveguide.

Efficient high-speed nanoscale optical sources are required for low-power next-generation data communication. Here we propose an integrated antenna-LED on a single-mode optical waveguide. By leveraging inverse design optimization, we achieved a waveguide coupling efficiency of 94% and an antenna efficiency of 64%, while maintaining a high average enhancement of 144 - potentially enabling >100GHz direct modulation.

Towards On-Chip Self-Referenced Frequency-Comb Sources Based on Semiconductor Mode-Locked Lasers.

Miniaturization of frequency-comb sources could open a host of potential applications in spectroscopy, biomedical monitoring, astronomy, microwave signal generation, and distribution of precise time or frequency across networks. This review article places emphasis on an architecture with a semiconductor mode-locked laser at the heart of the system and subsequent supercontinuum generation and carrier-envelope offset detection and stabilization in nonlinear integrated optics.

Multicast silicon photonic MEMS switches with gap-adjustable directional couplers.

We report on 4x20 silicon photonic MEMS switch that is capable of multicasting. The switch is built on passive optical crossbar network with gap-adjustable directional couplers. The switch has high on-off extinction ratio (59 dB), low insertion loss (< 4.0 dB), small footprint (1.2x4.5 mm2), and fast response (9.8 µs). The switching voltage is 9.6 V and 20 dB bandwidth is 31.5 nm. One-to-two and one-to-four multicast operations are demonstrated.

Silicon Photonic MEMS Phase-Shifter.

We present a design for an analog phase shifter based on Silicon Photonic MEMS technology. The operation principle is based on a two-step parallel plate electrostatic actuation mechanism to bring a vertically movable suspended tapered waveguide in a first step into proximity of the bus waveguide and to tune the phase of the propagating coupled mode in a second step by actuation of the suspended waveguide to tune the vertical gap. In the coupled state, the effective index of the optical supermode and the total accumulated phase delay can be varied by changing the vertical separation between the adiabatically tapered suspended and the fixed bus waveguides. Simulations predict that π phase shift can be achieved with an actuation voltage of 19 V, corresponding to a displacement of 19 nm. With an adiabatic coupler geometry, the optical signal can be coupled between the moving waveguide and the bus waveguide with low loss in a wide wavelength range from 1.5 µm to 1.6 µm keeping the average insertion loss below 0.3 dB.

Laser frequency sweep linearization by iterative learning pre-distortion for FMCW LiDAR.

We report on a laser frequency sweep linearization method by iterative learning pre-distortion for frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems. A pre-distorted laser drive voltage waveform that results in a linear frequency sweep is obtained by an iterative learning controller, and then applied to the FMCW LiDAR system. We have also derived a fundamental figure of merit for the maximum residual nonlinearity needed to achieve the transform-limited range resolution. This method is experimentally tested using a commercial vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) and a distributed feedback (DFB) laser, achieving less than 0.005% relative residual nonlinearity of frequency sweep. With the proposed method, high-performance FMCW LiDAR systems can be realized without expensive linear lasers, complex linearization setups, or heavy post-processing.

Picojoule-level octave-spanning supercontinuum generation in chalcogenide waveguides.

Low propagation loss Ge23Sb7S70 waveguides (0.56 dB/cm) are fabricated in a wafer scale process. Simulation of a 2 cm long, 1.2 µm wide waveguide with 100 ps/nm/km peak dispersion predicts coherent supercontinuum generation at 1.55 µm pump wavelength. Octave-spanning supercontinuum using a dispersive wave is experimentally demonstrated using picojoule-level energy (26 pJ, 240 fs pulse width, 77 W peak power) pulses.

High-accuracy range-sensing system based on FMCW using low-cost VCSEL.

Long-range shape measurement with high accuracy is needed for precision manufacturing of large-scale parts such as turbines, compressors, and trains. We have developed a high-accuracy ranging system based on frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) technology. Our system has two unique features. First, it achieves high-accuracy range measurement by directly modulating a low-cost vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) at high sweep rates. The nonlinearity of the optical frequency sweep is compensated for by resampling through a reference interferometer. Second, an optical fiber with multiple fiber Bragg grating (FBG) structures is used for distance calibration. Ranging accuracy better than 10 µm is achieved at 2 m distance. Three-dimensional (3D) imaging of 10-cubic-meter volume has been obtained by combining the FMCW ranging with a galvanometer scanner.

Large-area and bright pulsed electroluminescence in monolayer semiconductors.

Transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayers have naturally terminated surfaces and can exhibit a near-unity photoluminescence quantum yield in the presence of suitable defect passivation. To date, steady-state monolayer light-emitting devices suffer from Schottky contacts or require complex heterostructures. We demonstrate a transient-mode electroluminescent device based on transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayers (MoS2, WS2, MoSe2, and WSe2) to overcome these problems. Electroluminescence from this dopant-free two-terminal device is obtained by applying an AC voltage between the gate and the semiconductor. Notably, the electroluminescence intensity is weakly dependent on the Schottky barrier height or polarity of the contact. We fabricate a monolayer seven-segment display and achieve the first transparent and bright millimeter-scale light-emitting monolayer semiconductor device.

Widely tunable semiconductor lasers with three interferometric arms.

We present a comprehensive study for a new three-branch widely tunable semiconductor laser based on a self-imaging, lossless multi-mode interference (MMI) coupler. We have developed a general theoretical framework that is applicable to all types of interferometric lasers. Our analysis showed that the three-branch laser offers high side-mode suppression ratios (SMSRs) while maintaining a wide tuning range and a low threshold modal gain of the lasing mode. We also present the design rules for tuning over the dense-wavelength division multiplexing grid over the C-band.

Germanium wrap-around photodetectors on Silicon photonics.

We present a novel waveguide coupling scheme where a germanium diode grown via rapid melt growth is wrapped around a silicon waveguide. A 4 fF PIN photodiode is demonstrated with 0.95 A/W responsivity at 1550 nm, 6 nA dark current, and nearly 9 GHz bandwidth. Devices with shorter intrinsic region exhibit higher bandwidth (30 GHz) and slightly lower responsivity (0.7 A/W). An NPN phototransistor is also demonstrated using the same design with 14 GHz f(T).

Efficient Coupling of an Antenna-Enhanced nanoLED into an Integrated InP Waveguide.

Increasing power consumption in traditional on-chip metal interconnects has made optical links an attractive alternative. However, such a link is currently missing a fast, efficient, nanoscale light-source. Coupling nanoscale optical emitters to optical antennas has been shown to greatly increase their spontaneous emission rate and efficiency. Such a structure would be an ideal emitter for an on-chip optical link. However, there has never been a demonstration of an antenna-enhanced emitter coupled to a low-loss integrated waveguide. In this Letter we demonstrate an optical antenna-enhanced nanoLED coupled to an integrated InP waveguide. The nanoLEDs are comprised of a nanoridge of InGaAsP coupled to a gold antenna that exhibits a 36× enhanced rate of spontaneous emission. Coupling efficiencies as large as 70% are demonstrated into an integrated waveguide. Directional antennas also demonstrate direction emission down one direction of a waveguide with observed front-to-back ratios as high as 3:1.

Engineering light outcoupling in 2D materials.

When light is incident on 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), it engages in multiple reflections within underlying substrates, producing interferences that lead to enhancement or attenuation of the incoming and outgoing strength of light. Here, we report a simple method to engineer the light outcoupling in semiconducting TMDCs by modulating their dielectric surroundings. We show that by modulating the thicknesses of underlying substrates and capping layers, the interference caused by substrate can significantly enhance the light absorption and emission of WSe2, resulting in a ∼11 times increase in Raman signal and a ∼30 times increase in the photoluminescence (PL) intensity of WSe2. On the basis of the interference model, we also propose a strategy to control the photonic and optoelectronic properties of thin-layer WSe2. This work demonstrates the utilization of outcoupling engineering in 2D materials and offers a new route toward the realization of novel optoelectronic devices, such as 2D LEDs and solar cells.

Optical antenna enhanced spontaneous emission.

Atoms and molecules are too small to act as efficient antennas for their own emission wavelengths. By providing an external optical antenna, the balance can be shifted; spontaneous emission could become faster than stimulated emission, which is handicapped by practically achievable pump intensities. In our experiments, InGaAsP nanorods emitting at ∼ 200 THz optical frequency show a spontaneous emission intensity enhancement of 35 × corresponding to a spontaneous emission rate speedup ∼ 115 ×, for antenna gap spacing, d = 40 nm. Classical antenna theory predicts ∼ 2,500 × spontaneous emission speedup at d ∼ 10 nm, proportional to 1/d(2). Unfortunately, at d < 10 nm, antenna efficiency drops below 50%, owing to optical spreading resistance, exacerbated by the anomalous skin effect (electron surface collisions). Quantum dipole oscillations in the emitter excited state produce an optical ac equivalent circuit current, I(o) = qω|x(o)|/d, feeding the antenna-enhanced spontaneous emission, where q|x(o)| is the dipole matrix element. Despite the quantum-mechanical origin of the drive current, antenna theory makes no reference to the Purcell effect nor to local density of states models. Moreover, plasmonic effects are minor at 200 THz, producing only a small shift of antenna resonance frequency.

A 32 × 32 optical phased array using polysilicon sub-wavelength high-contrast-grating mirrors.

We report on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-actuated 32 × 32 optical phased arrays (OPAs) with high fill-factors and microsecond response time. To reduce the mirror weight and temperature-dependent curvature, we use high-contrast-grating (HCG) mirrors comprising a single layer of sub-wavelength polysilicon gratings with 400 nm thickness, 1250 nm pitch, and 570 nm grating bar width. The mirror has a broad reflection band and a peak reflectivity of 99.9% at 1550 nm wavelength. With 20 × 20 µm2 pixels and 2 µm, the OPA has a total aperture of 702 × 702 µm2 and a fill factor of 85%. The OPA is electrostatically controlled by voltage and has a total field of view of ± 2°, an instantaneous field of view (beam width) of 0.14°, and a response time of 3.8 µs. The latter agrees well with the mechanical resonance frequency of the HCG mirror (0.42 MHz).

High speed optical phased array using high contrast grating all-pass filters.

We report a high speed 8x8 optical phased array using tunable 1550 nm all-pass filters with ultrathin high contrast gratings (HCGs) as the microelectromechanical-actuated top reflectors. The all-pass filter design enables a highly efficient phase tuning (1.7 π) with a small actuation voltage (10 V) and actuation displacement of the HCG (50 nm). The microelectromechanical HCG structure facilitates a high phase tuning speed >0.5 MHz. Beam steering is experimentally demonstrated with the optical phased array.

Comprehensive model of 1550 nm MEMS-tunable high-contrast-grating VCSELs.

A comprehensive theoretical model for the long-wavelength micro-electro-mechanical-tunable high-contrast-grating vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers is presented. Our band structure model calculates the optical gain and spontaneous emission of the InGaAlAs quantum well active region. The grating reflectivity and the cavity resonance condition are investigated through optical modeling. Correlating the results with the electrostatic model for the micro-electro-mechanical system, we accurately predict the measurements on the voltage-contolled lasing wavelength. Furthermore, our calculated temperature-dependent wavelength-tunable light output vs. current (L-I) curves show excellent agreement with experiment.

Engineering of metal-clad optical nanocavity to optimize coupling with integrated waveguides.

We propose a cladding engineering method that flexibly modifies the radiation patterns and rates of metal-clad nanoscale optical cavity. Optimally adjusting the cladding symmetry of the metal-clad nanoscale optical cavity modifies the modal symmetry and produces highly directional radiation that leads to 90% coupling efficiency into an integrated waveguide. In addition, the radiation rate of the cavity mode can be matched to its absorption rate by adjusting the thickness of the bottom-cladding layer. This approach optimizes the energy-flow rate from the waveguide and maximizes the energy confined inside the nanoscale optical cavity.