Alignment tolerant, low voltage, 0.23 V.cm, push-pull silicon photonic switches based on a vertical pn junction.

In this paper, we present the design, fabrication and characterization of a carrier depletion silicon-photonic switch based on a highly doped vertical pn junction. The vertical nature of the pn junction enables the device to exhibit a modulation efficiency as high as 0.23 V.

Enhancing Pockels effect in strained silicon waveguides.

The magnitude and origin of the electro-optic measurements in strained silicon devices has been lately the object of a great controversy. Furthermore, recent works underline the importance of the masking effect of free carriers in strained waveguides and the low interaction between the mode and the highly strained areas. In the present work, the use of a p-i-n junction and an asymmetric cladding is proposed to eliminate the unwanted carrier influence and improve the electro-optical modulation response.

Non-volatile epsilon-near-zero readout memory.

The lack of memory effect of silicon makes it unfeasible to store electronic data in photonics. Here we propose a non-volatile readout photonic memory, which is electronically written/erased and optically read. The memory utilizes indium tin oxide as a floating gate and exploits its epsilon-near-zero regime and electro-optic activity.

On-chip wireless silicon photonics: from reconfigurable interconnects to lab-on-chip devices.

Photonic integrated circuits are developing as key enabling components for high-performance computing and advanced network-on-chip, as well as other emerging technologies such as lab-on-chip sensors, with relevant applications in areas from medicine and biotechnology to aerospace. These demanding applications will require novel features, such as dynamically reconfigurable light pathways, obtained by properly harnessing on-chip optical radiation. In this paper, we introduce a broadband, high directivity (>150), low loss and reconfigurable silicon photonics nanoantenna that fully enables on-chip radiation control.

Microwave index engineering for slow-wave coplanar waveguides.

Microwave index engineering has been investigated in order to properly design slow-wave coplanar waveguides suitable for a wide range of applications in microwave, photonics, plasmonics and metamaterials. The introduction and optimization of novel capacitive and inductive elements is proposed as a design approach to increase the microwave index while keeping the impedance close to 50 Ω to ensure the compatibility with external electronic devices. The contribution of inductive and capacitive elements and their influence on the performance of the slow-wave coplanar waveguide has been systematically analyzed.

High performace silicon 2x2 optical switch based on a thermo-optically tunable multimode interference coupler and efficient electrodes.

Optical switches based on tunable multimode interference (MMI) couplers can simultaneously reduce the footprint and increase the tolerance against fabrication deviations. Here, a compact 2x2 silicon switch based on a thermo-optically tunable MMI structure with a footprint of only 0.005 mm(2) is proposed and demonstrated.

Compact and low-loss asymmetrical multimode interference splitter for power monitoring applications.

This Letter presents a compact and low-loss 1×2 asymmetrical multimode interference (A-MMI) splitter in rib geometry for on-chip power monitoring at 1.55 μm, where a given alteration of the component cavity determines arbitrary values of the output power splitting ratios. The device shows reduced losses (∼0.

Group-index engineering in silicon corrugated waveguides.

We demonstrate group-index engineering in a one-dimensional periodic silicon structure consisting of a deep-etched laterally corrugated waveguide with circular holes patterned onto its wide section. Our theoretical analysis, supported by experimental results, shows that the first-order optical mode can propagate inside the Brillouin zone with a relatively high group index over a wide frequency range. Nearly constant group index as high as 13.

Highly efficient crossing structure for silicon-on-insulator waveguides.

A compact waveguide crossing structure with low transmission losses and negligible crosstalk is demonstrated for silicon-on-insulator circuits. The crossing structure is based on a mode expander optimized by means of a genetic algorithm leading to transmission losses lower than 0.2 dB and crosstalk and reflection losses below 40 dB in a broad bandwidth of 20 nm.