Review
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Nanxi Li, Chong Pei Ho, Shiyang Zhu, Yuan Hsing Fu, Yao Zhu, Lennon Yao Ting Lee
Summary: Aluminum nitride (AlN) is a CMOS-compatible material that overcomes the limitations of silicon, with a wide transparency window and significant nonlinear optical effects, suitable for various functional photonics devices.
Article
Physics, Multidisciplinary
Ilia N. Volkov, Zhanna S. Yermekova, Almaz I. Khabibrakhmanov, Andrey M. Kovalskii, Shakty Corthey, Alexey R. Tameev, Alexey E. Aleksandrov, Pavel B. Sorokin, Dmitry V. Shtansky, Andrei T. Matveev
Summary: We have successfully extended the detection bandwidth of h-BN photodetectors in the UV range through the surface plasmon resonance effect. Theoretical calculations showed that Al is the most suitable metal for h-BN UV sensitive detectors, leading to the development of h-BN/Al nanocomposites for localized SPR-based UV detectors.
Review
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Xuhan Guo, Xingchen Ji, Baicheng Yao, Teng Tan, Allen Chu, Ohad Westreich, Avik Dutt, Cheewei Wong, Yikai Su
Summary: Silicon photonics has succeeded in realizing compact and low-cost devices, but it is not suitable for some emerging applications. To solve this issue, introducing wideband materials through heterogeneous integration on silicon substrates is desirable. This article discusses the properties of different materials and provides examples of devices using these materials on silicon platform. They also introduce a general fabrication method and low-loss process treatment for photonic devices. The potential applications in sensing, optical comb generation, and quantum information processing are highlighted. The article concludes by discussing the potential of new materials and integration methods for future widespread applications.
Article
Crystallography
Alfredo A. Gonzalez-Fernandez, Mariano Aceves-Mijares, Oscar Perez-Diaz, Joaquin Hernandez-Betanzos, Carlos Dominguez
Summary: The lack of monolithically integrable light sources has been a historical bottleneck for truly high scale integrated photonics. Quantum phenomena in embedded Si particles at the nanometer scale offer a way to overcome limitations for bulk Si to emit light. By using CMOS-compatible materials and techniques, integrable light sources based on Si nanoparticles and Si3N4 photonic elements can be obtained for integrated Si photonics, with the possibility of directly including photodetectors in standard Si wafers.
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Jack A. Smith, Henry Francis, Gabriele Navickaite, Michael J. Strain
Summary: This article presents a high-performance silicon nitride photonic integrated circuit platform that operates at visible wavelengths and is accessible through the commercial foundry, LIGENTEC. The article measures propagation losses across the visible spectrum from 450 nm to 850 nm. For wavelengths above 630 nm, the losses are <1 dB/cm in TE and <0.5 dB/cm in TM. In addition, sets of single mode waveguide-coupled ring resonators across three separate chips were tested and analyzed. The article provides an analysis of the loss and coupling, considering the bus-ring coupling gap and waveguide width. High confinement, low loss devices based on chip-scale silicon nitride are becoming increasingly important for the next generation of integrated optical devices operating at visible wavelengths.
OPTICAL MATERIALS EXPRESS
(2023)
Article
Optics
B. Chmielak, S. Suckow, J. Parra, V. C. Duarte, T. Mengual, M. A. Piqueras, A. L. Giesecke, M. C. Lemme, P. Sanchis
Summary: An enhanced grating coupler design based on an amorphous silicon layer on top of silicon nitride is proposed to improve the directionality of the coupler, while maintaining low waveguide losses.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Salih Yanikgonul, Victor Leong, Jun Rong Ong, Ting Hu, Shawn Yohanes Siew, Ching Eng Png, Leonid Krivitsky
Summary: Integrated photodetectors are crucial components for scalable photonics platforms, with most efforts focused on devices operating at infrared telecommunication wavelengths. The authors present the first monolithically integrated avalanche photodetector for visible light, demonstrating high gain-bandwidth product and low dark current, as well as open eye diagrams at speeds up to 56 Gbps.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Review
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Zi Wang, Yahui Xiao, Kun Liao, Tiantian Li, Hao Song, Haoshuo Chen, S. M. Zia Uddin, Dun Mao, Feifan Wang, Zhiping Zhou, Bo Yuan, Wei Jiang, Nicolas K. Fontaine, Amit Agrawal, Alan E. Willner, Xiaoyong Hu, Tingyi Gu
Summary: This article reviews an alternative method of defining light flow in integrated photonic circuits using subwavelength meta-atoms or metalines. The role of metasurfaces in integrated photonic signal processing systems and the design principles of such systems are discussed.
Review
Physics, Applied
Oluwatobi Olorunsola, Abdulla Said, Solomon Ojo, Hryhorii Stanchu, Grey Abernathy, Sylvester Amoah, Samir Saha, Emmanuel Wangila, Joshua Grant, Sudip Acharya, Lucas Miller, Kyle Rosler, Yue-Tong Jheng, Guo-En Chang, Baohua Li, Gregory Salamo, Shui-Qing Yu, Wei Du
Summary: Recent studies of SiGeSn materials and optoelectronic devices show great potential for photonics integrated circuits (PICs) on Si platform, with scalability, cost-effectiveness, and power-efficiency. Breakthroughs in low temperature material growth techniques have led to the growth of device-quality materials, enabling the demonstration of various optoelectronic devices. Additionally, investigation of quantum wells has shown the potential for significant improvements and novel device performance.
JOURNAL OF PHYSICS D-APPLIED PHYSICS
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Marcin Lelit, Mateusz Slowikowski, Maciej Filipiak, Marcin Juchniewicz, Bartlomiej Stonio, Bartosz Michalak, Krystian Pavlov, Marcin Mysliwiec, Piotr Wisniewski, Andrzej Kazmierczak, Krzysztof Anders, Stanislaw Stopinski, Romuald B. Beck, Ryszard Piramidowicz
Summary: The fabrication processes for silicon nitride photonic integrated circuits have common roots with microelectronics components technology, but passive photonic structures require fewer manufacturing steps and have larger critical dimensions. This work presents the design and development of fundamental building blocks for silicon nitride integrated photonic platform, covering the full design and manufacturing chain. Technological processes were developed and evaluated for the fabrication of waveguides, multimode interferometers, and arrayed waveguide gratings, confirming the technology's potential and the correctness of the proposed approach.
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Haotian Shi, Chukun Huang, Linfeng Yu, Qiang Huang, Ming Cheng, Junqiang Sun
Summary: This study proposes an integrated acousto-optic device with compact interdigital transducers (IDTs) design on an aluminum nitride (AlN) platform for intramodal acousto-optic modulation. The fabricated suspended AlN-based acousto-optic devices achieve high double-sideband scattering, RF modulation bandwidth, and optical operational bandwidth. This device offers new opportunities for various acousto-optic interaction applications.
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Basile Meynard, Kyllian Millard, Daivid Fowler, Yann Lee, Stephanie Garcia, Karen Ribaud, Philippe Grosse, Christophe Martinez
Summary: This paper presents the design, fabrication, and experimental characterization of photonic integrated components for a novel retinal projection concept in augmented reality applications. The components include single-mode strip waveguides, bent waveguides, MMI couplers, diffraction grating couplers, and waveguide crossings. These compact and low-loss photonic components are specifically designed for working in the visible spectrum and can also have applications in other fields such as biophotonics, optical phased arrays, and visible light communication.
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Zhifang Luo, Aoxue Zhang, Weixiong Huang, Shuai Shao, Yushuai Liu, Tao Wu, Yi Zou
Summary: Silicon photonics with CMOS compatibility has made significant progress in the past decades and has been widely used in commercial products. To meet the demand for high-fidelity and high-speed optical interconnect, as well as high-resolution sensing and information processing, hybrid integration of existing materials with post-CMOS technology has become crucial. Aluminum nitride (AlN) is a popular piezoelectric material in the field of MEMS and has been studied and integrated into photonic integrated circuits (PICs) in recent years. This review article provides an overview of the properties and processing of AlN thin films, as well as the application of AlN piezoelectric MEMS transducer technologies. Photonic devices on hybrid Si-AlN and pure AlN thin film platforms are also discussed. The article concludes with an outlook on the future development of reconfigurable integrated photonics based on AlN thin films.
IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Min Wu, Yibiao Yang, Hongming Fei, Han Lin, Xiaodan Zhao, Lijuan Kang, Liantuan Xiao
Summary: This study proposes a topological photonic ring-resonator based on hexagonal boron nitride valley photonic crystal, which can achieve robust unidirectional transmission in the visible region and achieve a high quality factor in a compact size. The flexibility of different shapes and combinations of ring-resonators is also verified, making it suitable for integration with quantum photonic chips for various applications.
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Optics
Guozhen Liang, Heqing Huang, Aseema Mohanty, Min Chul Shin, Xingchen Ji, Michael Joseph Carter, Sajan Shrestha, Michal Lipson, Nanfang Yu
Summary: The study presents visible-spectrum silicon nitride thermo-optic phase modulators based on adiabatic micro-ring resonators, which offer a one-order-of-magnitude reduction in both device footprint and power consumption compared to waveguide phase modulators. These modulators provide 1.6 pi phase modulation with minimal amplitude variations and improved robustness against fabrication variations.
Article
Optics
C. J. Xin, Jatadhari Mishra, Changchen Chen, Di Zhu, Amirhassan Shams-Ansari, Carsten Langrock, Neil Sinclair, Franco N. C. Wong, M. M. Fejer, Marko Loncar
Summary: Researchers have engineered a waveguide on the thin-film lithium niobate platform to generate spectrally separable photon pairs for use as pure single-photon sources. Based on experimental results, the estimated spectral purity of these pure single photons is over 94%.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Ryan Hamerly, Saumil Bandyopadhyay, Dirk Englund
Summary: The authors demonstrate a method to overcome fabrication errors and enable the scaling of programmable photonic circuits. Through the introduction of modified circuit architectures, perfect realization of the cross state is achieved, allowing for the development of larger-scale circuits.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Jasvith Raj Basani, Sri Krishna Vadlamani, Saumil Bandyopadhyay, Dirk R. R. Englund, Ryan Hamerly
Summary: This paper presents a novel architecture for multiport interferometers based on the sine-cosine fractal decomposition of a unitary matrix. The unique self-similarity and modularity of our design offer improved resilience to hardware imperfections compared to conventional multiport interferometers. Numerical simulations show that truncation of these meshes gives robust performance even under large fabrication errors, making it a significant advancement in large-scale programmable photonics for practical machine learning and quantum computing applications.
Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Laura Kim, Hyeongrak Choi, Matthew E. E. Trusheim, Hanfeng Wang, Dirk R. R. Englund
Summary: Nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond provide a spin-based qubit system with long coherence time even at room temperature, making them suitable ambient-condition quantum sensors for quantities including electromagnetic fields, temperature, and rotation. The optically addressable level structures of NV spins allow transduction of spin information onto light-field intensity. The sub-optimal readout fidelity of conventional fluorescence measurement remains a significant drawback for room-temperature ensemble sensing. Here, we discuss nanophotonic interfaces that provide opportunities to achieve near-unity readout fidelity based on IR absorption via resonantly enhanced spin-optic coupling. Spin-coupled resonant nanophotonic devices are projected to particularly benefit applications that utilize micro- to nanoscale sensing volume and to outperform present methods in their volume-normalized sensitivity.
Article
Physics, Applied
Alessandro Buzzi, Matteo Castellani, Reed A. A. Foster, Owen Medeiros, Marco Colangelo, Karl K. K. Berggren
Summary: The development of superconducting electronics based on nanocryotrons has been limited by the lack of standardized and reliable logic cells. This study introduces and demonstrates designs for nanocryotron-based building blocks that can be combined to implement memory and logic functions. The devices were fabricated using a single layer of superconducting niobium nitride and tested in liquid helium. The results show high performance in terms of error rates and operating under external magnetic fields. These building blocks have the potential to advance the development of nanocryotron logic circuits and finite-state machines for superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors.
APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Physics, Applied
Reed A. A. Foster, Matteo Castellani, Alessandro Buzzi, Owen Medeiros, Marco Colangelo, Karl K. K. Berggren
Summary: We propose a design for a superconducting nanowire binary shift register that stores digital states using circulating supercurrents in high-kinetic-inductance loops. The register is fabricated with thin-film NbN and achieves a bit error rate of less than 10(-4) at a maximum clock frequency of 83 MHz and in an out-of-plane magnetic field of up to 6 mT. This technology allows for low-power readout of superconducting nanowire single photon detector arrays and can interface directly with room-temperature electronics and operate unshielded in high magnetic field environments.
APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Physics, Applied
Jamie S. Luskin, Ekkehart Schmidt, Boris Korzh, Andrew D. Beyer, Bruce Bumble, Jason P. Allmaras, Alexander B. Walter, Emma E. Wollman, Lautaro Narvaez, Varun B. Verma, Sae Woo Nam, Ilya Charaev, Marco Colangelo, Karl K. Berggren, Cristian Pena, Maria Spiropulu, Maurice Garcia-Sciveres, Stephen Derenzo, Matthew D. Shaw
Summary: Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) are the highest-performing technology for time-resolved single-photon counting. The recent discovery of single-photon sensitivity in micrometer-scale superconducting wires is promising for large active area devices. We present 8-pixel 1 mm² superconducting microwire single photon detectors (SMSPDs) and demonstrate their performance in near-infrared sensitivity.
APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
I. Charaev, D. A. Bandurin, A. T. Bollinger, I. Y. Phinney, I. Drozdov, M. Colangelo, B. A. Butters, T. Taniguchi, K. Watanabe, X. He, O. Medeiros, I. Bozovic, P. Jarillo-Herrero, K. K. Berggren
Summary: High-temperature cuprate superconducting nanowires enable single-photon detection at higher temperatures, offering high detection efficiency, signal-to-noise ratio, and fast recovery times. This is crucial for applications such as quantum communication, fluorescence lifetime imaging, and remote sensing. Our research expands the materials family for SNSPD technology, allowing for single-photon detection at common temperatures without the need for costly cooling equipment.
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Physics, Applied
Emma Batson, Marco Colangelo, John Simonaitis, Eyosias Gebremeskel, Owen Medeiros, Mayuran Saravanapavanantham, Vladimir Bulovic, P. Donald Keathley, Karl K. Berggren
Summary: Absorption of light is a major issue in integrating optical and superconducting components in circuit architectures. This study investigates reduced indium tin oxide (ITO) as a potential transparent superconductor for electronics. Superconducting wires of reduced ITO were fabricated and characterized, showing that a 10 nm thick film of this material would only absorb about 1%-20% of light between 500 and 1700 nm.
SUPERCONDUCTOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Microscopy
Akshay Agarwal, John Simonaitis, Vivek K. Goyal, Karl K. Berggren
Summary: Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is a versatile technique used for nanoscale imaging. This paper introduces an SE count imaging scheme that improves SEM image quality by overcoming noise caused by variations in the voltage signal from the detector. The scheme synchronously outcouples the detector and beam scan signals and uses custom code to count detected SEs. Experimental results show a 30% increase in image signal-to-noise ratio compared to conventional imaging.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Hanfeng Wang, Matthew E. Trusheim, Laura Kim, Hamza Raniwala, Dirk R. Englund
Summary: This study proposes a programmable architecture based on diamond color centers driven by electric or strain fields, aiming to reduce power consumption and cross-talk constraints in large-scale quantum networks. By densely packing diamond color centers in a programmable electrode array and driving quantum gates with electric or strain fields, this 'field programmable spin array’ (FPSA) enables high-speed control of individual color centers with low cross-talk and power dissipation. Integrated with a slow-light waveguide for efficient optical coupling, the FPSA serves as a quantum interface for optically-mediated entanglement, showing increased entanglement generation rate scaling into the thousand-qubit regime.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Xiyuan Lu, Mingkang Wang, Feng Zhou, Mikkel Heuck, Wenqi Zhu, Vladimir A. Aksyuk, Dirk R. Englund, Kartik Srinivasan
Summary: The authors demonstrate a method for generating orbital angular momentum (OAM) using photonic crystal ring resonators, while maintaining high cavity quality factors (up to 10^6). By ejecting high angular momentum states of a whispering gallery mode (WGM) microresonator through a grating-assisted mechanism, a scalable and chip-integrated solution for OAM generation is achieved.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)
Review
Physics, Applied
Charles Roques-Carmes, Steven E. Kooi, Yi Yang, Nicholas Rivera, Phillip D. Keathley, John D. Joannopoulos, Steven G. Johnson, Ido Kaminer, Karl K. Berggren, Marin Soljacic
Summary: When free electrons impinge on optical structures or pass nearby, they emit electromagnetic radiation called cathodoluminescence. These effects have been extensively studied in high-energy physics, but recent progress in nanophotonics has led to new applications in shaping and controlling free-electron radiation. In this review, we present a unified framework for understanding free-electron light-matter interaction and discuss experimental techniques for characterizing and controlling free-electron radiation in nanophotonic systems. We also outline future directions for this field, including ultrafast and quantum effects, tunable short-wavelength emitters, and free-electron radiation from topological states.
APPLIED PHYSICS REVIEWS
(2023)
Article
Physics, Applied
Uday Saha, James D. Siverns, John Hannegan, Mihika Prabhu, Qudsia Quraishi, Dirk Englund, Edo Waks
Summary: In this work, we demonstrate the routing of single photons from a trapped ion using a photonic integrated circuit. The emission of the ion is matched to the operating wavelength of the circuit through quantum frequency conversion. Programmable phase shifters are used to switch the single photons between output channels and achieve a 50:50 beam splitting condition. These results are important for programmable routing and entanglement distribution in large-scale quantum networks and distributed quantum computers.
PHYSICAL REVIEW APPLIED
(2023)
Proceedings Paper
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
Ryan Hamerly, Saumil Bandyopadhyay, Alexander Sludds, Dirk Englund
Summary: Conventional multiport interferometers based on MZI meshes are limited by component imperfections. We introduce two new designs that have better error tolerance and self-configuration capability.
AI AND OPTICAL DATA SCIENCES III
(2022)
