PR39_FellowshipResearchReport

Summary of a Project Outcomes report of research funded by a PhD Fellowship Award from IBM, in the area of integrated photonics and quantum optical communications.

Наш вектор развития – выпуск востребованной конкурентоспособной продукции

АО "Зеленоградский нанотехнологический центр" (АО "ЗНТЦ") – предприятие, которое не только активно развивает непростое направление микроэлектронного производства, но и стремится соответствовать в этом самым передовым тенденциям, выстраивая кооперацию с ведущими отечественными вузами и предприятиями для создания полноценных цепочек от разработки ЭКБ до создания аппаратуры с ее использованием. В уходящем году компания проделала большую работу сразу по нескольким направлениям. Это сборка полупроводниковых приборов и интегральных схем, производство электронной компонентной базы по технологии нитрид галлия на кремнии и интегральная фотоника. О достигнутых результатах и наиболее перспективных областях, в которых развивается Зеленоградский наноцентр, рассказывает генеральный директор АО "ЗНТЦ" Анатолий Андреевич Ковалев. The Zelenograd Nanotechnology Center JSC (ZNTC JSC) develops microelectronics manufacturing and also strives to stay inline with the most advanced trends in this matter by arranging cooperation with leading Russian universities. ZNTC implements comprehensive flow from electronic components design to equipment creation based on these components. In this year, the company has reached a new level in semiconductor assembly, GaN-on-Si and integrated photonics manufacturing. Anatoly Kovalev, CEO of ZNTC JSC, tells about the achievements and the most promising growth lines of the company.

Superconducting NbN thin films on various (X/Y/Z-cut) lithium niobate substrates

Lithium niobate (LN) exhibits outstanding properties in various application of photonics, electronics, and optoelectronics, showing potentials in integration. Due to the directional dependence of LN tensor properties, optical elements made up by LN favor the type of LN substrate. To introduce high-performance superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors to LN-integrated photonics chips, superconducting NbN thin films with thicknesses from 3 to 50 nm were deposited on X-cut, Y-cut, and Z-cut LN substrates using magnetron sputtering at room temperature. The different thickness dependencies of Tc, δTc, and residual resistance ratios are observed in NbN thin films on different LN substrates. NbN thin films on X-cut and Y-cut LN substrates are polycrystalline with a transition temperature (Tc) of ~6 K for a 6-nm-thick film. While NbN thin films are epitaxially textured on Z-cut LN substrates with Tc of 11.5 K for a 6-nm-thick film. NbN-SNSPD on X-cut LN substrates shows a weak saturation trend of its system detection efficiency; however, the performance of NbN-SNSPD on Z-cut LN substrates is limited. We evaluated the selection of cuts and concluded that X-cut and Y-cut LN are more suitable to be a platform of integrated LN photonic chips from the aspect of NbN-SNSPD. This study helps fabricate high-performance SNSPDs on fully integrated photonics chips on LN substrates.

Integrated photonics enables continuous-beam electron phase modulation

Integrated photonics facilitates extensive control over fundamental light–matter interactions in manifold quantum systems including atoms1, trapped ions2,3, quantum dots4 and defect centres5. Ultrafast electron microscopy has recently made free-electron beams the subject of laser-based quantum manipulation and characterization6–11, enabling the observation of free-electron quantum walks12–14, attosecond electron pulses10,15–17 and holographic electromagnetic imaging18. Chip-based photonics19,20 promises unique applications in nanoscale quantum control and sensing but remains to be realized in electron microscopy. Here we merge integrated photonics with electron microscopy, demonstrating coherent phase modulation of a continuous electron beam using a silicon nitride microresonator. The high-finesse (Q0 ≈ 106) cavity enhancement and a waveguide designed for phase matching lead to efficient electron–light scattering at extremely low, continuous-wave optical powers. Specifically, we fully deplete the initial electron state at a cavity-coupled power of only 5.35 microwatts and generate >500 electron energy sidebands for several milliwatts. Moreover, we probe unidirectional intracavity fields with microelectronvolt resolution in electron-energy-gain spectroscopy21. The fibre-coupled photonic structures feature single-optical-mode electron–light interaction with full control over the input and output light. This approach establishes a versatile and highly efficient framework for enhanced electron beam control in the context of laser phase plates22, beam modulators and continuous-wave attosecond pulse trains23, resonantly enhanced spectroscopy24–26 and dielectric laser acceleration19,20,27. Our work introduces a universal platform for exploring free-electron quantum optics28–31, with potential future developments in strong coupling, local quantum probing and electron–photon entanglement.

Parallel Directional Coupler based Dual-Polarization Electro-Absorption Modulator using Epsilon Near-Zero Material

Electro–optical modulation, where a radio frequency signal can be encoded in an optical field, is crucial to decide the overall performance of an integrated photonics system. Due to the growing internet penetration rate worldwide, polarization-division-multiplexing (PDM) technique has emerged to increase the link capacity, where polarization-independent modulators are desirable to reduce system complexity. In this study, we propose a novel parallel directional coupler based dual-polarization electro-absorption modulator based on epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) material. The proposed design is capable of independent and synchronized modulation of two fundamental modes viz. transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) mode of a standard silicon rib waveguide. Indium-tin-oxide (ITO)–Silicon based two parallel hybrid plasmonic waveguides (HPW1 and HPW2) are placed such that fundamental TM (TE) mode of the input bus waveguide can be coupled to HPW1 (HPW2). The ENZ-state of ITO, acquired upon two independent electrical gating, enables large modulation depth by utilizing enhancement of electric field at the absorptive carrier accumulation layer. With a 27 μm active length, the extinction ratio (ER) of the proposed design is 10.11 dB (9.66 dB) for TM (TE) modulation at 1550 nm wavelength. This results in a 0.45 dB ER-discrepancy and indicates the polarization-insensitive nature of the modulator. The insertion losses and modulation bandwidths of our design are less than 1 dB and more than 100 GHz, respectively, for both polarizations over the entire C-band of wavelength. The proposed design can find potential applications in the PDM-enabled integrated photonics systems and high speed optical interconnections at data center networks.