High-performance Optical Communication Research Articles

Broadband self-powered MoS2/PdSe2/WSe2 PSN heterojunction photodetector for high-performance optical imaging and communication

Two-dimensional (2D) semi-metal transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have drawn significant attention for their distinctive physical properties. However, the inherent high dark current of these materials and the single structure of detectors hinder the further development of photodetectors with high performance. Here, we construct a PSN (p-type semiconductor/semi-metal/n-type semiconductor) architecture by sandwiching 2D semi-metal between two semiconductor layers. In this architecture, the top and bottom layers generate an internal built-in electric field, while the middle layer serves as an absorption layer for low-energy photons and facilitates the dissociation of photo-generated carriers. As a result, the heterojunction device demonstrates a wide spectrum optical response from visible to infrared light (405 nm to 1550 nm) without requiring an external voltage. Working in self-powered mode at room temperature, the device achieves a responsivity of 0.56 A/W, a detectivity of 5.63 × 1011 Jones, and a rapid response speed of 190/74 µs. Additionally, the device shows potential for applications in fast optical communication and multi-wavelength optical imaging. This work presents a novel approach for developing a new type of broadband, self-powered, high-performance miniaturized semi-metal-based photodetector.

Aggregation Induced Emission-Based Covalent Organic Frameworks for High-Performance Optical Wireless Communication.

Here, we report the first utilization of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) in optical wireless communication (OWC) applications. In the solid form, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogen often shows promising emissive characteristics that augment radiative decays and improve fluorescence. We have synthesized an AIE-COF through the Knoevenagel condensation reaction by taking advantage of the ability to carefully design and alter the COF structure by integrating an AIE luminogen with linear building blocks. The synthesized AIE-COF exhibited a high solid-state photoluminescence quantum yield (∼39%) and a short photoluminescence lifetime (∼1 ns), crucial for achieving modulation bandwidth for high-speed OWC applications. For comparison, we constructed an aggregation-caused quenching based COF, showing a similar lifetime but almost insignificant quantum yield. The orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing modulation strategy employed by the AIE-COF demonstrates remarkable high-rate data transmission, with a wide -3 dB modulation bandwidth of nearly 200 MHz and achieving high net data rates of 825 Mb/s, outperforming traditional materials. These results open new avenues for the ability to design and finetune new COF materials for their utilization as color converters in developing cutting-edge OWC components, enabling faster and more efficient data transfer.

Hybrid plasmonic valley-Hall topological insulators

Abstract The emerging field of photonic topological insulators offers promising platforms for high-performance optical communication, computing, and sensing. However, conventional photonic topological insulator designs typically operate within the diffraction limit due to their dielectric nature. This limitation imposes constraints on device miniaturization, reduces light–matter interaction, and decreases overall device sensitivity. Introducing a new valley-Hall hybrid plasmonic topological insulator, we overcome this limitation by exploiting the coupling of surface plasmon oscillations with the optical modes of a dielectric photonic crystal, allowing for sub-diffraction vertical confinement of light. Deep-subwavelength chiral edge states can, therefore, be generated and robustly guided along disordered Z-shaped topological boundaries with much lower propagation loss compared to purely plasmonic platforms. Such extreme manipulation of light on an integrated chip platform maximizes light–matter interaction and opens the door for truly compact and efficient optical modulators, molecular sensors, and next-generation nanophotonic and quantum devices.

MAPbI3 perovskite photodetectors for high-performance optical wireless communication

High-sensitivity and fast-response photodetectors (PDs) are vital part of optical wireless communication (OWC) system. In this work, we develop an organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite material (MAPbI3) based p–i–n structured PD. By optimizing the precursor solution concertation, the PD showed a high responsivity of 0.98 A W−1, a fast response time t rise/t fall of 12/12.5 μs, a specific detectivity of 2.62 × 1013 Jones, and the f−3dB of 24 kHz under the 532 nm laser and −0.2 V bias voltage. Furthermore, we designed an OWC system based on the prepared PD. With the baud rate of 19200 bps, the system exhibits a bit error rate less than 10−6, and it can realize 9.63 m long-distance communication and quick transmission applications such as strings, texts, photos, and audios. Our work demonstrates the great application potential of perovskite PDs in the field of optical communication.

Self-powered graphene/4H-SiC nanowire array-based ultraviolet photodetectors with fast response time and low dark current for promising wireless ultraviolet communication

Self-powered ultraviolet photodetectors (UV PDs) capable of detecting UV light signals without using an external power supply have become particularly attractive because of their high sensitivity, consistent optical response, ultra-small size, low energy consumption, and long-term robustness for the future. Here we reported a self-powered UV PDs coupling of two-dimensional (2D) single-layer graphene and one-dimensional (1D) 4H-SiC nanowire arrays. The fabricated PDs can feature an ultra-high on-off ratio of 6301 at 0 V and the 2D-1D architectural exhibits a low dark current of ∼4 pA, an ultra-fast response of 4.89 ms. The high performance was associated with the formed heterojunction between the 2D graphene and 1D 4H-SiC nanowire array and the high carrier mobility of the graphene. Moreover, the 2D-1D PDs with a large switching ratio and ultra-fast response time can be beneficial to achieve efficient, real-time, and accurate information transmission under 275 nm UV light, shedding some light on the development of high-performance wireless optical communication systems.

Integrated barium titanate electro-optic modulators operating at CMOS-compatible voltage.

We propose monolithically integrated electro-optical modulators based on thin-film x-cut barium titanate that exhibit large modulation bandwidth and operate at voltages compatible with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. The optical and radio frequency parameters of the modulator are systematically simulated, calculated, and optimized, respectively. Our simulation includes the evaluation of single-mode conditions, the separation distance between the electrode edge and the waveguide edge, bending loss, optical field distribution, and half-wave voltage-length product for optical parameters, and characteristic impedance, attenuation constant, radio frequency effective index, and -3d B modulation bandwidth for radio frequency parameters. By engineering both the microwave and photonic circuits, we have achieved high electro-optical efficiencies and group-velocity matching simultaneously. Our numerical simulation and theoretical analysis show that the half-wave voltage-length product was 0.48V·cm, and the -3d B modulation bandwidths with a device length of 5mm and 10mm were 262GHz and 107GHz, respectively. Overall, our study highlights the potential of the proposed modulators for low driving voltage and high-performance optical communication systems.

Continuous control of polarization state and tunable dual-channel optical communication based on highly transparent PMN-PT electro-optic ceramics

Transparent ferroelectric materials have excellent electro-optic properties, suitable to be used to develop high-performance optical communication devices. La-doped 88Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–12PbTiO3 (88PMN-12PT) transparent ceramics with excellent comprehensive performances, including high transparency of 70.5% at near-infrared wavelength (close to its theoretical value), large quadratic electro-optic coefficient of 23.6 × 10−16 m2 V−2, low half-wave voltage (Vπ) of 146 V, and good extinction ratio of 34 dB, are successfully prepared in this paper. Based on the electro-optic effect of PMN-PT transparent ceramics, laser polarization state is transformed continuously from linear polarization to elliptical polarization, later to circularly polarization by applying electric field. Furthermore, dual-channel optical communication with a tunable laser intensity ratio is first reported here. Results indicate that PMN-PT transparent ceramic is a promising candidate for electro-optic material in polarization controller, optical switch, and information monitor in optical communication.

Soft Q-factor in optical communication systems

High-performance optical communications require a very low bit error rate (BER) down to 10-15 with soft-decision (SD) forward error correction (FEC). There are several performance metrics based on soft information for systems with SD-FEC, but system budgets are usually described with conventional Q-factor converted from pre-FEC BER, based on hard decision for its convenience and history. In this work, for enhancing the feasibility of the soft information, we propose an approximation method for deriving the Q-factor based on soft information. The proposed method improves the approximation accuracy by more than 20 times compared with the conventional scheme.

Flat-top filter using slanted guided-mode resonance gratings with bound states in the continuum

The attribute of bound states in the continuum (BICs) for highly efficient flat-top filter by using a slanted guided-mode resonance (GMR) grating is developed in this work. By introducing a slanted angle θ, the fully symmetric grating is broken to transform the dark BICs into bright quasi-BICs mode. Theoretical analysis based on the finite-different time-domain method is applied to evaluate the filtering performances. It is found that the GMR and quasi-BICs peaks combine at θ=31.4°, and the flat-top filtering response is realized at the central wavelength of 1550 nm under normal incidence. Moreover, the linewidth-tunable and central wavelength-tunable spectral response can be varied according to the change in the coupling strength of the GMR grating by changing the structural parameters such as period, fill factor and refractive index of the grating. It is the first report of a flat-top filter designed by combining GMR and quasi-BICs. The proposed structure shows promise for application in high-performance optical communication systems.

Learning-enabled recovering scattered data from twisted light transmitted through a long standard multimode fiber

Multiplexing multiple orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes of light has proven to be an effective way to increase data capacity in fiber-optic communications. However, existing techniques for distributing the OAM modes rely on specially designed fibers or couplers. Direct transmission of multiplexed OAM modes through a long standard multimode fiber remains challenging because the strong mode coupling in fibers disables OAM demultiplexing. Here, we propose a deep-learning-based approach to recover the scattered data from multiplexed OAM channels without measuring any phase information. Over a 1-km-long standard multimode fiber, our method is able to identify different OAM modes with an accuracy of more than 99.9% in the parallel demultiplexing of 24 scattered OAM channels. To demonstrate the transmission quality, color images are encoded in multiplexed twisted light and our method achieves decoding the transmitted data with an error rate of 0.13%. Our work shows that the artificial intelligence algorithm could benefit the use of OAM multiplexing in commercial fiber networks and high-performance optical communication in turbulent environments.

Tunable Flat-Top Filtering Response in Cascaded Resonant Waveguide Gratings

The applicability of resonant waveguide grating (RWG)-based structures as filters to control the spectral response in an optical communication system is investigated. A new physical model for the structure is established on the basis of the Fabry-Pérot (FP) etalon model and coupled leaky mode theory (CLMT). It is found that the flat-top spectral response of the filter is achieved by the combined effect of the guided-mode resonance of an RWG and its Fabry-Pérot resonance (FPR). The bandwidth-tunable spectral response of the filter can be varied according to the change in the eigenvalues of the RWG by changing the structural parameters such as strip width of the grating and incident angle. The flat-top and bandwidth-tunable RWG-based resonant filter is a promising application for high-performance optical communication systems.

Waveguide external cavity narrow linewidth semiconductor lasers

Narrow linewidth light source is a prerequisite for high-performance coherent optical communication and sensing. Waveguide-based external cavity narrow linewidth semiconductor lasers (WEC-NLSLs) have become a competitive and attractive candidate for many coherent applications due to their small size, volume, low energy consumption, low cost and the ability to integrate with other optical components. In this paper, we present an overview of WEC-NLSLs from their required technologies to the state-of-the-art progress. Moreover, we highlight the common problems occurring to current WEC-NLSLs and show the possible approaches to resolving the issues. Finally, we present the possible development directions for the next phase and hope this review will be beneficial to the advancements of WEC-NLSLs.

High-Q Dielectric Mie-Resonant Nanostructures (Brief Review)

Future technologies underpinning high-performance optical communications, ultrafast computations and compact biosensing will rely on densely packed reconfigurable optical circuitry based on nanophotonics. For many years, plasmonics was considered as the only available platform for nanoscale optics, but the recently emerged novel field of Mie resonant metaphotonics provides more practical alternatives for nanoscale optics by employing resonances in high-index dielectric nanoparticles and structures. In this mini-review we highlight some recent trends in the physics of dielectric Mie-resonant nanostructures with high quality factor (Q factor) for efficient spatial and temporal control of light by employing multipolar resonances and the bound states in the continuum. We discuss a few applications of these concepts to nonlinear optics, nanolasers, subwavelength waveguiding, and sensing.

Avalanche Carrier Multiplication in Multilayer Black Phosphorus and Avalanche Photodetector.

A highly sensitive avalanche photodetector (APD) is fabricated by utilizing the avalanche multiplication mechanism in black phosphorus (BP), where a strong avalanche multiplication of electron-hole pairs is observed. Owing to the small bandgap (0.33 eV) of the multilayer BP, the carrier multiplication occurs at a significantly lower electric field than those of other 2D semiconductor materials. In order to further enhance the quantum efficiency and increase the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, Au nanoparticles (NPs) are integrated on the BP surface, which improves the light absorption by plasmonic effects. The BP-Au-NPs structure effectively reduces both dark current (≈10 times lower) and onset of avalanche electric field, leading to higher carrier multiplication, photogain, quantum efficiency, and S/N ratio. For the BP-Au-NPs APD, it is obtained that the external quantum efficiency (EQE) is 382 and the responsivity is 160 A W-1 at an electric field of 5 kV cm-1 (Vd ≈ 3.5 V, note that for the BP APD, EQE = 4.77 and responsivity = 2 A W-1 obtained at the same electric field). The significantly increased performance of the BP APD is promising for low-power-consumption, high-sensitivity, and low-noise photodevice applications, which can enable high-performance optical communication and imaging systems.

Optical orbital-angular-momentum-multiplexed data transmission under high scattering

Multiplexing multiple orbital angular momentum (OAM) channels enables high-capacity optical communication. However, optical scattering from ambient microparticles in the atmosphere or mode coupling in optical fibers significantly decreases the orthogonality between OAM channels for demultiplexing and eventually increases crosstalk in communication. Here, we propose a novel scattering-matrix-assisted retrieval technique (SMART) to demultiplex OAM channels from highly scattered optical fields and achieve an experimental crosstalk of –13.8 dB in the parallel sorting of 24 OAM channels after passing through a scattering medium. The SMART is implemented in a self-built data transmission system that employs a digital micromirror device to encode OAM channels and realize reference-free calibration simultaneously, thereby enabling a high tolerance to misalignment. We successfully demonstrate high-fidelity transmission of both gray and color images under scattering conditions at an error rate of <0.08%. This technique might open the door to high-performance optical communication in turbulent environments.

Electron–phonon dynamics in 2D carbon based-hybrids XC (X = Si, Ge, Sn)

The effect of the presence of electron–phonon (e–ph) coupling in the SiC, GeC and SnC hybrids is studied in the framework of the ab initio perturbation theory. The electronic bang gap thermal dependence reveals a normal monotonic decrease in the SiC and GeC semiconductors, whereas SnC exhibits an anomalous behavior. The electron line widths were evaluated and the contributions of acoustic and optical phonon modes to the imaginary part of the self-energy were determined. It has been found that the e–ph scattering rates are globally controlled by the out-of-plane acoustic transverse mode ZA in SiC while both ZA and ZO are overriding in GeC. In SnC, the out-of-plane transverse optical mode ZO is the most dominant. The relaxation lifetime of the photo-excited electrons shows that the thermalization of the hot carrier occurs at 90 fs, 100 fs and 120 fs in SiC, GeC and SnC, respectively. The present study properly describes the subpicosecond time scale after sunlight illumination using an approach that requires no empirical data. The results make the investigated structures suitable for providing low cost and high-performance optical communication and monitoring applications using 2D materials.

A novel high-performance self-powered ultraviolet photodetector: Concept, analytical modeling and analysis

In this paper, a new MSM-UV-photodetector (PD) based on dual wide band-gap material (DM) engineering aspect is proposed to achieve high-performance self-powered device. Comprehensive analytical models for the proposed sensor photocurrent and the device properties are developed incorporating the impact of DM aspect on the device photoelectrical behavior. The obtained results are validated with the numerical data using commercial TCAD software. Our investigation demonstrates that the adopted design amendment modulates the electric field in the device, which provides the possibility to drive appropriate photo-generated carriers without an external applied voltage. This phenomenon suggests achieving the dual role of effective carriers’ separation and an efficient reduce of the dark current. Moreover, a new hybrid approach based on analytical modeling and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is proposed to achieve improved photoelectric behavior at zero bias that can ensure favorable self-powered MSM-based UV-PD. It is found that the proposed design methodology has succeeded in identifying the optimized design that offers a self-powered device with high-responsivity (98 mA/W) and superior ION/IOFF ratio (480 dB). These results make the optimized MSM-UV-DM-PD suitable for providing low cost self-powered devices for high-performance optical communication and monitoring applications.

SSCS Hong Kong Chapter Hosts a Workshop on High-Performance Wireless and Optical Communication Transceiver SoC Design [Chapters

SSCS Hong Kong Chapter Hosts a Workshop on High-Performance Wireless and Optical Communication Transceiver SoC Design [Chapters

Monolayer excitonic laser

A laser is made from the two-dimensional material WS2 by embedding it into a microdisk resonator. Two-dimensional van der Waals materials have opened a new paradigm for fundamental physics exploration and device applications because of their emerging physical properties. Unlike gapless graphene, monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are two-dimensional semiconductors that undergo an indirect-to-direct bandgap transition1,2,3,4,5, creating new optical functionalities for next-generation ultra-compact photonics and optoelectronics. Although the enhancement of spontaneous emission has been reported on TMDC monolayers integrated with photonic crystals6,7 and distributed Bragg reflector microcavities8,9, coherent light emission from a TMDC monolayer has not been demonstrated. Here, we report the realization of a two-dimensional excitonic laser by embedding monolayer WS2 in a microdisk resonator. Using a whispering gallery mode with a high quality factor and optical confinement, we observe bright excitonic lasing at visible wavelengths. This demonstration of a two-dimensional excitonic laser marks a major step towards two-dimensional on-chip optoelectronics for high-performance optical communication and computing applications.

Resources scheduling for data relay satellite with microwave and optical hybrid links based on improved niche genetic algorithm

The formation of the Space-based Information System with the technology of high performance optical inter-satellite communication and the realization of global seamless coverage and mobile terminal accessing are the necessary trend of the development of optical and microwave hybrid communication. Considering the resources, missions and restraints of data relay satellite optical and microwave hybrid links system, a model of hybrid links resources scheduling is established and a scheduling algorithm based on an improved niche genetic algorithm is put forwarded. According to the multi-user-satellite, multi-time-window, multi-class-antenna and a number of missions with priority weight, the scheduling schemes are generated randomly to begin with and evaluated with the fitness functions. To obtain an optimal scheduling result, an improved niche genetic algorithm is adopted to optimize the scheduling schemes. The simulation result reveals that a satisfactory result is obtained and the improved niche genetic algorithm has advantages in both efficiency and performance in a scenario including a relay satellite with 2 optical antennas and 1 microwave antenna for user satellites connection, 8 user satellites with 64 missions. The simulation indicates that the model and the optimization algorithm are suitable for multi-user, multi-mission and multi-class-antenna hybrid communication recourses scheduling problem.