Waveguide Dispersion Research Articles

III-V-on-Si3N4 widely tunable narrow-linewidth laser based on micro-transfer printing

Leveraging its superior waveguide properties, silicon-nitride (Si3N4) photonics is emerging to expand the applications of photonic integrated circuits to optical systems where bulk optics and fibers today still dominate. In order to fully leverage its advantages, heterogeneous integration of III-V gain elements on Si3N4 is one of the most critical steps. In this paper, we demonstrate a III-V-on-Si3N4 widely tunable narrow-linewidth laser based on micro-transfer printing. Detailed design considerations of the tolerant III-V-to-Si3N4 vertical coupler, Si3N4-based micro-ring resonators (MRRs), and micro-heaters are discussed. By introducing the dispersion of Si3N4 waveguide in the design, the proposed Vernier MRRs enable an extended tuning range over multiple Vernier periods. The laser shows a wavelength tuning range of 54 nm in C and L bands with intrinsic linewidth less than 25 kHz. Within the tuning range, the side mode suppression ratio is larger than 40 dB and the output power in the Si3N4 waveguide reaches 6.3 mW. The integration process allows for the fabrication and quality control of both the Si3N4 circuits and III-V devices in its own foundry, which greatly enhances the integration yield and paves the way for large-scale integration.

Efficient mass manufacturing of high-density, ultra-low-loss Si3N4 photonic integrated circuits

Silicon nitride (Si3N4) photonic integrated circuits (PICs) offer significant advantages over traditional silicon photonics, including low loss and superior power handling at optical communication wavelength bands. To facilitate high-density integration and effective nonlinearity, the use of thick, stoichiometric Si3N4 films is crucial. However, when using low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) to achieve high optical material transparency, Si3N4 films exhibit large tensile stress on the order of GPa, leading to wafer cracking that challenges mass production. Methods for crack prevention are therefore essential. The photonic Damascene process has addressed this issue, attaining record low-loss Si3N4 PICs, but it lacks control of the waveguide height, leading to large random variations of waveguide dispersion and unpredictable spectrum responses of critical functional devices such as optical couplers. Conversely, subtractive processes achieve better dimension control but rely on techniques unsuitable for large-scale production. To date, an outstanding challenge is to attain both lithographic precision and ultra-low loss in high-confinement Si3N4 PICs that are compatible with large-scale foundry manufacturing. Here, we present a single-step deposited, DUV-based subtractive method for producing wafer-scale ultra-low-loss Si3N4 PICs that harmonize these necessities. By employing deep etching of densely distributed, interconnected trenches into the substrate, we effectively mitigate the tensile stress in the Si3N4 layer, enabling direct deposition of thick films without cracking and substantially prolonged storage duration. A secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) analysis reveals that these deep trenches simultaneously serve as gettering centers for metal impurities, in particular copper, thereby reducing the absorption loss in Si3N4 waveguides. Lastly, we identify ultraviolet (UV)-radiation-induced damage that can be remedied through a rapid thermal annealing. Collectively, we develop ultra-low-loss Si3N4 microresonators and 0.5-m-long spiral waveguides with losses down to 1.4 dB/m at 1550 nm with high production yield. This work addresses the long-standing challenges toward scalable and cost-effective production of tightly confined, low-loss Si3N4 PICs as used for quantum photonics, large-scale linear and nonlinear photonics, photonic computing, and narrow-linewidth lasers.

Achromatic Silicon Photonic Waveguide Lenses for Ultra‐Broadband Multimode Spot‐Size Conversion

AbstractThe rapid development of silicon photonics inspired the emergence of on‐chip geometric optics. As one of the most crucial elements, waveguide‐lenses have attracted much attention. Nevertheless, waveguide‐lenses often suffer from large chromatism due to the strong waveguide dispersion, especially for the cases with multiple guided‐modes. In this paper, achromatic waveguide‐lenses available for multimode photonics are proposed and are further utilized for realizing multimode spot size converters (MSSCs) as an example. The present MSSC shows low excess losses < 0.4 dB and low inter‐mode crosstalks <−14 dB within an ultra‐broad bandwidth of 1450–1650 nm, which is realized for the first time by comprising a positive waveguide‐lens and a negative waveguide‐lens. In addition, the present MSSC is applied successfully for realizing high‐performance multimode waveguide corner‐bends. To the best of the knowledge, the proposed MSSC is the unique one with an ultra‐compact footprint and the largest bandwidth for low crosstalks as well as low losses, indicating that on‐chip geometric optics potentially provides a new perspective for on‐chip light manipulation desired in various applications.

Inverse design for waveguide dispersion with a differentiable mode solver

Inverse design of optical components based on adjoint sensitivity analysis has the potential to address the most challenging photonic engineering problems. However, existing inverse design tools based on finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) models are poorly suited for optimizing waveguide modes for adiabatic transformation or perturbative coupling, which lies at the heart of many important photonic devices. Among these, dispersion engineering of optical waveguides is especially challenging in ultrafast and nonlinear optical applications involving broad optical bandwidths and frequency-dependent anisotropic dielectric material response. In this work, we develop gradient back-propagation through a general-purpose electromagnetic eigenmode solver and use it to demonstrate waveguide dispersion optimization for second harmonic generation with maximized phase-matching bandwidth. This optimization of three design parameters converges in eight steps, reducing the computational cost of optimization by ∼100x compared to exhaustive search and identifying new designs for broadband optical frequency doubling of laser sources in the 1.3–1.4 µm wavelength range. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the computational cost of gradient back-propagation is independent of the number of parameters, as required for optimization of complex geometries. This technique enables practical inverse design for a broad range of previously intractable photonic devices.

Low-dispersive silicon nitride waveguide resonators by nanoimprint lithography

In this study, we demonstrate the fabrication of waveguide resonators using nanoimprint technology. Without relying on traditionally costly lithography methods, such as electron-beam lithography or stepper lithography, silicon nitride (Si3N4) resonators with high-quality factors up to the order of 105 can be realized at C-band by nanoimprint lithography. In addition, by properly designing the waveguide geometry, a low-dispersive waveguide can be achieved with waveguide dispersion at around −35 ps/nm/km in the normal dispersion regime, and the waveguide dispersion can be further tuned to be 29 ps/nm/km in the anomalous dispersion regime with the polymer cladding. The tunability of nanoimprinted devices is demonstrated by the aid of microheaters, realizing on-chip optical functionalities. This work offers the potential to fabricate low-dispersive waveguide resonators for integrated modulators and filters in a significantly cost-effective and process-friendly scheme.

Engineering Epsilon‐Near‐Zero Media with Waveguides

AbstractEpsilon‐Near‐Zero (ENZ) media have attracted widespread interest due to their unique electromagnetic properties, which have brought distinctive characteristics and phenomena, such as spatiotemporal decoupling, supercoupling and tunneling, constant phase transmission, near‐field enhancement, and so on. However, these ENZ characteristics are existed in natural plasmonic materials at their intrinsic plasma frequencies and accompanied by significant losses, thus limiting their applications in engineering. Different from the effect ENZ media with artificially periodic structures, the waveguide ENZ media offers a promising platform with non‐periodic architectures. Unlike the natural plasmonic materials and the periodic‐structured ENZ media, the waveguide ENZ media utilizes waveguide dispersion to achieve effective ENZ characteristics and phenomena with lower loss and smaller dimensions. This review begins with an exploration of the fundamental properties of the waveguide ENZ media and then introduces the design principles of different ENZ‐based electromagnetic devices. Finally, the review concludes with the challenges and potential development directions encountered by the ENZ media in the realm of electromagnetic applications.

Nonlinear tunneling of chirped similaritons in non-centrosymmetric waveguides with quadratic-cubic nonlinearity

The nonlinear tunneling of the optical similaritons through both dispersion and nonlinear barriers in a non-centrosymmetric waveguide exhibiting second- and third-order nonlinearity is studied. Within the framework of an inhomogeneous quadratic-cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation with distributed group velocity dispersion, reciprocal of the group velocity, quadratic-cubic nonlinearity, and gain or loss, we demonstrate the existence of a rich variety of exact similariton solutions in the shape of bright, kink, anti-kink, W-shaped, and gray solutions. The results show that these self-similar waves involve certain control parameters in their amplitude, phase, width, and shift of the inverse group velocity, which enables us to control their evolution dynamics in the waveguide system through a suitable choice of these parameters. It is found that the parameter of reciprocal of the group velocity decides the phase shift and group velocity of these self-similar waves. Also, the stability of the solutions is discussed numerically. Results of this paper are helpful for enriching the similariton theory and understanding the dynamics of self-similar waves in systems with quadratic–cubic nonlinearities.

A wideband, high-resolution vector spectrum analyzer for integrated photonics

The analysis of optical spectra—emission or absorption—has been arguably the most powerful approach for discovering and understanding matter. The invention and development of many kinds of spectrometers have equipped us with versatile yet ultra-sensitive diagnostic tools for trace gas detection, isotope analysis, and resolving hyperfine structures of atoms and molecules. With proliferating data and information, urgent and demanding requirements have been placed today on spectrum analysis with ever-increasing spectral bandwidth and frequency resolution. These requirements are especially stringent for broadband laser sources that carry massive information and for dispersive devices used in information processing systems. In addition, spectrum analyzers are expected to probe the device’s phase response where extra information is encoded. Here we demonstrate a novel vector spectrum analyzer (VSA) that is capable of characterizing passive devices and active laser sources in one setup. Such a dual-mode VSA can measure loss, phase response, and dispersion properties of passive devices. It also can coherently map a broadband laser spectrum into the RF domain. The VSA features a bandwidth of 55.1 THz (1260–1640 nm), a frequency resolution of 471 kHz, and a dynamic range of 56 dB. Meanwhile, our fiber-based VSA is compact and robust. It requires neither high-speed modulators and photodetectors nor any active feedback control. Finally, we employ our VSA for applications including characterization of integrated dispersive waveguides, mapping frequency comb spectra, and coherent light detection and ranging (LiDAR). Our VSA presents an innovative approach for device analysis and laser spectroscopy, and can play a critical role in future photonic systems and applications for sensing, communication, imaging, and quantum information processing.

A metasurface structure-assisted terahertz negative curvature fiber

Negative curvature fibers have the benefits of high bandwidth, low loss, and provide higher transmission performances. Birefringence of the fiber is particularly important, with potential application value in communication, imaging and other fields. In this paper, a metasurface structure-assisted terahertz negative curvature fiber is designed to improve the birefringence characteristic. This work breaks through the conditional design ideas, and theoretically analyzes the effect of adding gold microstructures in the cladding structures on the transmission characteristics of negative curvature fibers. The investigation results show that the birefringence of the designed fiber exhibits a significant increase in most frequency range between 1.75–2.4 THz compared to the results before adding gold microstructures. The maximum birefringence reaches as high as 0.00216 when the frequency is 2.175 THz and θ is 90°. Compared to the original frequency, the birefringence has increased by nearly an order of magnitude. The highest birefringence has been increased to 3.5 times. In addition, the influences of the gold microstructures on the confinement loss, waveguide dispersion, and effective mode field area are also investigated. This fiber provides a reference for the design of high birefringence terahertz fibers in the future.

Ultra-broadband magneto-optical isolators and circulators on a silicon nitride photonics platform

Broadband optical isolators and circulators are highly desirable for wavelength-division multiplexing, light detection, and ranging systems. However, the silicon-integrated optical isolators and circulators reported so far have a limited isolation bandwidth of only several nanometers, due to waveguide and material dispersion. In this paper, we report the development of broadband magneto-optical isolators on silicon nitride waveguides. We proposed a general method of dispersion compensation to achieve a constant phase difference between reciprocal and nonreciprocal phase shifts in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer over a wide frequency range. This method enabled a theoretical 30 dB isolation/circulation bandwidth of more than 240 nm, which covers the S, C, L, and U bands. The fabricated devices showed a maximum isolation ratio of 28 dB, crosstalk of −28dB, high 20-dB isolation bandwidth of 29 nm (3.48 THz), and a relatively low loss of 2.7 dB in the wavelength range of 1520–1610 nm. By further heating the reciprocal phase shifter based on the thermo-optic effect, the experimental 20 dB isolation bandwidth of the device increased to 90 nm (11.03 THz). This method has also been applied to the design of broadband, low-loss isolators, and O/C dual-band isolators/circulators. Our work experimentally demonstrated broadband-integrated optical isolators and circulators on silicon, paving the way for their use in optical communication, data communication, and LiDAR applications.

Automatic detection and 2D localization using a network of unsynchronized passive acoustic sensors in a dispersive waveguide

The time-frequency positions of modal dispersion curves in shallow-water low-frequency impulsive signals are strongly dependent on source-receiver range, making them suitable for range-based localization. Here, we apply a temporal convolutional network (TCN) to spectrograms estimated from individual sensors in an array of unsynchronized hydrophones to simultaneously detect dispersive signals and produce source-range estimates. The TCN is trained on simulated signals generated over a spatial grid and various environmental parameters using the adiabatic approximation for normal modes. Assuming that the number of unique sources is unknown, range measurements from the same source across different sensors are simultaneously associated and used in localization. To accomplish this automatically, the proposed method considers all unique combinations of range measurements from every collection of k sensors. For every range measurement combination, if the location estimate generated using each subcombination of k-1 measurements is within a certain threshold of the remaining measurement, the whole collection is labeled as group-k consistent. All such groups of measurements are represented as neighboring nodes in a graph, and strongly connected components are used to calculate the final source location estimates. The whole detection/localization method is validated using both simulated and experimental marine data. [Work supported by NDSEG and ONR].

Solutions to muddy (geoacoustic inversion) problems

Waveguide propagation is a ubiquitous topic in ocean acoustics. This presentation focuses on low-frequency (f < 500 Hz) sound propagation in coastal oceans (water depth shallower than 500 m). These environments are highly dynamical and complex, and act as dispersive waveguides, bounded by the sea-surface and the seafloor. The underwater acoustic field can thus be described by a set of modes that propagate with frequency-dependent speeds. Propagation of transient acoustic signals to a distant receiver (range > 1 km) accrues multi-modal dispersion information about the propagation medium. To extract relevant information about the oceanic environment from the acoustic recording, physics-based processing methods must be used. In this presentation, I will briefly review modal propagation and time-frequency analysis. I will then show how these approaches can be combined into a non-linear signal processing method dedicated to extracting modal information from a single receiver: this information is the foundation of a transdimensional inversion method used to characterize the oceanic environment. This method will be used to perform geoacoustic inversion on the New England Mud Patch. Using several datasets collected under different oceanographic conditions, I will notably demonstrate a successful estimation of the seafloor properties, consistent with geophysical core measurements and other inversion studies, even when the water column is dynamical and mostly unknown.

The impact of shallow waveguides on the spectral characteristics of modulated spectral lines in underwater radiated noise produced by ships

The modulation spectrum line spectrum of undersea radiated noise from ships is a significant characteristic in the identification of ship targets. This research presents an analysis of the impact of waveguide dispersion effect and demodulation bandwidth on the intensity of modulation line spectrum, based on the theoretical framework of square demodulation method. The physical mechanism underlying this influence is derived and discussed. The examination of collected data and numerical simulations demonstrates that the extracted modulated line spectrum intensity in an unobstructed environment effectively utilizes the carrier’s energy and generally does not exhibit any abnormal loss during propagation. However, in a shallow sea dispersive waveguide, as the propagation distance increases, a transimission loss anomaly of over 3dB occurs in the modulated line spectrum. The theoretical derivation yields implications that can offer theoretical backing for the reduction of vibration and noise in underwater targets, extraction of faint signals from high-order line spectra in the distant field, and identification of targets.

Femtosecond electron beam probe of ultrafast electronics

The need for ever-faster information processing requires exceptionally small devices that operate at frequencies approaching the terahertz and petahertz regimes. For the diagnostics of such devices, researchers need a spatiotemporal tool that surpasses the device under test in speed and spatial resolution. Consequently, such a tool cannot be provided by electronics itself. Here we show how ultrafast electron beam probe with terahertz-compressed electron pulses can directly sense local electro-magnetic fields in electronic devices with femtosecond, micrometre and millivolt resolution under normal operation conditions. We analyse the dynamical response of a coplanar waveguide circuit and reveal the impulse response, signal reflections, attenuation and waveguide dispersion directly in the time domain. The demonstrated measurement bandwidth reaches 10 THz and the sensitivity to electric potentials is tens of millivolts or −20 dBm. Femtosecond time resolution and the capability to directly integrate our technique into existing electron-beam inspection devices in semiconductor industry makes our femtosecond electron beam probe a promising tool for research and development of next-generation electronics at unprecedented speed and size.

Ultrabroadband vernier cascaded microring filters based on dispersive Si3N4 waveguides

A viable candidate for use in silicon photonics and microwave photonics is the hybrid external cavity laser (ECL) chip, which offers a high extinction ratio, ultrabroadband mode-hopping-free tuning range, and small linewidth. It requires a photonic filter device with an ultrabroadband operating bandwidth and adjustable frequency selection capability. The Vernier cascaded microring filter is a prevailing filter technique that usually ignores chromatic dispersion and will result in noticeable frequency variations, particularly over a large frequency range. Based on dispersive Si3N4 waveguides, we develop ultrabroadband Vernier cascaded microring filters and examine the impact of chromatic dispersion. For the same waveguide geometry, the filter’s effective free spectral range (FSR) varies by more than 400 GHz with and without the dispersion. Furthermore, these Vernier filters, which are made of anomalous and normal dispersive waveguides respectively, exhibit mode hopping at the opposite frequency side. It leads to a sudden mode number leap and, consequently, a diversified dispersion condition for the convoluted filtering frequency. We show that this phenomenon is caused by the interplay between half of the FSR difference, and the accumulated frequency difference caused by the chromatic dispersion. Finally, the use of thermal-optical tuning enables accurate frequency tuning. Our findings offer a valuable resource for the engineering of hybrid ECLs at the chip scale.

An Efficient Method for Calculating the Dispersion and Characteristic Impedance of Silicon Substrate-Integrated Gap Waveguide in Terahertz Band

An Efficient Method for Calculating the Dispersion and Characteristic Impedance of Silicon Substrate-Integrated Gap Waveguide in Terahertz Band

Temperature-insensitive high-sensitivity refractive index sensor based on a thinned helical fiber grating with an intermediate period.

A temperature-insensitive high-sensitivity refractive index sensor is proposed and experimentally demonstrated, which is based on utilization of a thinned helical fiber grating but with an intermediate period (THFGIP). Attributed to the reduced diameter and an intermediate period of the grating, the proposed sensor has a high surrounding refractive-index (SRI) sensitivity and a low temperature sensitivity. The average SRI sensitivity of the proposed sensor is up to 829.9 nm/RIU in the range of 1.3410-1.4480 RIU. Moreover, unlike the traditional sensitivity-enhancement method by increasing the waveguide dispersion factor, here the waveguide dispersion factor at the resonant wavelength was decreased by reducing the diameter of the fiber grating and as a result, the crosstalk effect due to the temperature change can be further suppressed. The proposed temperature-insensitive SRI sensor has the superiorities of simple structure, ease fabrication, and low cost, which could be found more potential applications in the SRI sensing fields.

Polariton Condensation in Gap-Confined States of Photonic Crystal Waveguides.

The development of patterned multiquantum well heterostructures in GaAs/AlGaAs waveguides has recently made it possible to achieve exciton-polariton condensation in a topologically protected bound state in the continuum (BIC). Polariton condensation was shown to occur above a saddle point of the two-dimensional polariton dispersion in a one-dimensional photonic crystal waveguide. A rigorous analysis of the condensation phenomenon in these systems, as well as the role of the BIC, is still missing. In the present Letter, we theoretically and experimentally fill this gap by showing that polariton confinement resulting from the negative effective mass and the photonic energy gap in the dispersion play a key role in enhancing the relaxation toward the condensed state. In fact, our results show that low-threshold polariton condensation is achieved within the effective trap created by the exciting laser spot, regardless of whether the resulting confined mode is long-lived (polariton BIC) or short-lived (lossy mode). In both cases, the spatial quantization of the polariton condensate and the threshold differences associated to the corresponding state lifetime are measured and characterized. For a given negative mass, a slightly lower condensation threshold from the polariton BIC mode is found and associated to its reduced radiative losses, as compared to the lossy one.

A multiple scattering formulation for elastic wave propagation in space–time modulated metamaterials

Space–time modulation of material parameters offers new possibilities for manipulating elastic wave propagation by exploiting time-reversal symmetry breaking. Here, we propose and validate a general framework based on the multiple scattering theory to model space–time modulated elastic metamaterials, namely elastic waveguides equipped with modulated resonators. The formulation allows to consider an arbitrary distribution of resonators with a generic space–time modulation profile and compute the wavefield within and outside the resonators’ region. Under appropriate assumptions, the same framework can be exploited to predict the waveguide dispersion relation. We demonstrate the capabilities of our formulation by revisiting the dynamics of two representative space–time modulated systems, e.g., the non-reciprocal propagation of (i) flexural waves along a metabeam and (ii) surface acoustic waves along a metasurface. Given its flexibility, the proposed method can facilitate the design of novel devices able to realize unidirectional transport of elastic energy for vibration isolation, signal processing and energy harvesting purposes.

Electromagnetically induced transparency in many-emitter waveguide quantum electrodynamics: Linear versus nonlinear waveguide dispersions

Electromagnetically induced transparency in many-emitter waveguide quantum electrodynamics: Linear versus nonlinear waveguide dispersions