Abstract
Recently, different nanophotonic computational design methods based on optimization algorithms have been proposed which revolutionized the conventional design techniques of photonic integrated devices. The intelligently designed photonic devices have small footprints and high operating performance along with their fabrication feasibility. In this study, we introduce a new approach based on attractor selection algorithm to design photonic integrated devices. In order to demonstrate the potential of the proposed approach, we designed two structures: an optical coupler and an asymmetric light transmitter. The designed photonic devices operate at telecom wavelengths and have compact dimensions. The designed optical coupler has a footprint of only 4 × 2 μm2 and coupling efficiency of 87.5% at a design wavelength of 1550 nm with spatial beam width compression ratio of 10:1. Moreover, the designed optical coupler operates at a wide bandwidth of 6.45% where the transmission efficiency is above 80%. In addition, the designed asymmetric light transmitter with a size of 2 × 2 μm2 has the forward and backward transmission efficiencies of 88.1% and 8.6%, respectively. The bandwidth of 3.47% was calculated for the designed asymmetric light transmitter where the forward transmission efficiency is higher than 80% and the backward efficiency transmission is under 10%. In order to evaluate the operating performance of the designed photonic devices, coupling losses are analyzed. The presented results show that the attractor selection algorithm, which is based on artificial neural networks, can bring a conceptual breakthrough for the design of efficient integrated nanophotonic devices.
Highlights
Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have many advantages over integrated electronic circuits such as having a large bandwidth, resistance to interference and nonexistence of Joule effect [1,2]
The designed optical coupler consists of Si- individual cells with a size of 100 nm × 100 nm and a thickness of 240 nm where the Si- nano-waveguide with a width of 400 nm is butt-coupled to the optical coupling region
In 3D finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations to calculate the coupling efficiency of the optical coupler, a broadband plane-wave light source of transverse-electric (TE) polarization covering 1300 nm – 1800 nm range is used to excite the photonic device where the electric field components are along the xy-plane (Ex, Ey) and the magnetic field Hz is perpendicular to the xy-plane
Summary
Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have many advantages over integrated electronic circuits such as having a large bandwidth, resistance to interference and nonexistence of Joule effect [1,2]. Coupling of light from free-space to PIDs through the optical waveguides is a challenging issue in SOI platforms due to high refractive index contrast and difference of mode orders between optical fibers and waveguides For this reason, design of an optical coupler that confines the incident light into a waveguide is important for applications of PICs. For this reason, design of an optical coupler that confines the incident light into a waveguide is important for applications of PICs In this regard, various methods have been introduced to couple incident light into a waveguide with high coupling efficiency and large bandwidth, and to reduce the dimensions of optical couplers [11,14,15]. In order to design non-reciprocal devices, metamaterials, magneto-optical materials, and indirect interband photonic transitions are introduced [17,18,19] These structures are not compatible with CMOS technology and demand high input power and large integration area. To the best of authors’ knowledge, it is the first time to demonstrate the successful utilization of an approach based on ANNs in order to design PIDs
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