Large-Scale Microphotonic Circuits

The development of large-scale integrated (LSI) circuits in the 1970s led to a revolution in microelectronics with the development of the microprocessor that revolutionized the world of computing and computer science, ultimately resulting in the Internet based world we live in today. Recent developments in microphotonics point to a similar revolution taking place in today in the development of large-scale integrated (LSI) microphotonic circuits. Microphotonic circuits can dramatically alleviate communication bottlenecks, reduce power consumption, enable high-frequency high-fidelity filtering, new sensor modalities, precision timing, and the direct generation of high-frequency electromagnetic fields in chip-scale CMOS compatible solutions. Already, breakthroughs in microphotonic circuits have led to the ability to freely manipulate polarization states on-chip enabling the first demonstration of a polarization independent microphotonic circuit, the ability to detect infrared radiation approaching fundamental noise limits, transmit optical data with a one-hundred-fold reduction in power consumption relative to electrical communications, and route optical data at nanosecond switching speeds on a silicon chip for the first time. In this talk, we present on recent developments in microphotonic devices and circuits, including a one-femtojoule-per-bit silicon modulator, nanophotonic phased arrays that not only enable arbitrary pattern formation but represent the first large-scale integrated (LSI) microphotonic circuit, and on-chip silicon lasers, all integrated within the world’s first 300mm silicon photonics platform.