Non-Volatile Programmable Ultra-Small Photonic Arbitrary Power Splitters.

Huan Yuan,Jinping Zhang,Xun Pu,Jiagui Wu,Zhenfu Zhang,Yang Yu,Junbo Yang

doi:10.3390/nano12040669

Abstract

A series of reconfigurable compact photonic arbitrary power splitters are proposed based on the hybrid structure of silicon and Ge2Sb2Se4Te1 (GSST), which is a new kind of non-volatile optical phase change material (O-PCM) with low absorption. Our pixelated meta-hybrid has an extremely small photonic integrated circuit (PIC) footprint with a size comparable to that of the most advanced electronic integrated circuits (EICs). The power-split ratio can be reconfigured in a completely digital manner through the amorphous and crystalline switching of the GSST material, which only coated less than one-fifth of the pattern allocation area. The target power–split ratio between the output channels can be arbitrarily reconfigured digitally with high precision and in the valuable C-band (1530–1560 nm) based on the analysis of three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain. The 1 × 2, 1 × 3, and 1 × 4 splitting configurations were all investigated with a variety of power–split ratios for each case, and the corresponding true value tables of GSST distribution are given. These non-volatile hybrid photonic splitters offer the advantages of an extremely small footprint and non-volatile digital programmability, which are favorable to the truly optoelectronic fusion chip.

Highlights

Multimode interferometers (MMIs) can be used as power splitters based on the principle of selfimaging in planar multimode waveguide [8] such as a 1 × 4 power splitter with two-stage cascaded multimode interferometers (MMIs) couplers connected by phase shifters [9] and 1 × 2 power splitters based on asymmetrical MMIs [10,11]
We propose a non-volatile programmable photonic arbitrary power splitter using an all-digital nanophotonics design and optical phase change material (O-PCM) hybrid structure
The device consists of one input waveguide and one air hole, or a line or amorphous) of the O-PCM, the device can dynamically achieve different power

Summary

Introduction

Perfect optoelectronic fusion chip solutions require photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and electronic integrated circuits (EICs) with two basic properties: (1) an extremely small. PIC size and similar EIC size, enabling high integration; the difference in the order of magnitude between traditional PICs and EICs is a significant fusion barrier; (2) a PIC programmability that is similar to EICs [1,2,3,4]. Power splitters are widely used in several applications as one of the very basic PIC devices [5,6,7]. They can be roughly classified into two types: those with a fixed proportional power–split ratio and those with an adjustable power–split ratio. Multimode interferometers (MMIs) can be used as power splitters based on the principle of selfimaging in planar multimode waveguide [8] such as a 1 × 4 power splitter with two-stage cascaded MMI couplers connected by phase shifters [9] and 1 × 2 power splitters based on asymmetrical MMIs (by breaking the structural symmetry of multimode waveguide) [10,11]

Methods

Results

Conclusion