Abstract
Integrated photonics changes the scaling laws of information and communication systems offering architectural choices that combine photonics with electronics to optimize performance, power, footprint, and cost. Application-specific photonic integrated circuits, where particular circuits/chips are designed to optimally perform particular functionalities, require a considerable number of design and fabrication iterations leading to long development times. A different approach inspired by electronic Field Programmable Gate Arrays is the programmable photonic processor, where a common hardware implemented by a two-dimensional photonic waveguide mesh realizes different functionalities through programming. Here, we report the demonstration of such reconfigurable waveguide mesh in silicon. We demonstrate over 20 different functionalities with a simple seven hexagonal cell structure, which can be applied to different fields including communications, chemical and biomedical sensing, signal processing, multiprocessor networks, and quantum information systems. Our work is an important step toward this paradigm.
Highlights
Integrated photonics changes the scaling laws of information and communication systems offering architectural choices that combine photonics with electronics to optimize performance, power, footprint, and cost
We demonstrate the implementation of over 20 different configurations of photonic circuits ranging from simple single-input/single-output FIR filters, optical ring resonators (ORRs), coupled resonator waveguides (CROWs), side-coupled integrated spaced sequences of optical resonators (SCISSORs) and ring loaded Mach Zehnder Interferometers (MZIs) to multipleinput/multiple-output linear optic 2 × 2, 3 × 3, and 4 × 4 transformations including Pauli Matrices and a C-NOT gate
Each hexagon side or basic unit length (BUL) is composed of two close waveguides, and the connection between them is controlled by means of a tuneable basic unit (TBU) that is implemented by 3-dB MZIs (Fig. 1c)
Summary
Integrated photonics changes the scaling laws of information and communication systems offering architectural choices that combine photonics with electronics to optimize performance, power, footprint, and cost. The so-called application-specific photonic integrated circuit (ASPIC) paradigm has been dominant so far in integrated optics[31] In this approach, a particular circuit configuration is designed to optimally perform a particular functionality in terms of propagation losses, power consumption, footprint and number of components. Several authors[36,37,38] have reported seminal theoretical work proposing different architectures and design principles based on the cascade of beamsplitters or Mach Zehnder Interferometers (MZIs) that incorporate phase tuning elements, which enable independent control of amplitude and phase of light These configurations are targeted in particular for multiple input/multiple output feedforward linear optics transformations
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
