Small-Signal Analysis of All-Si Microring Resonator Photodiode

All-silicon microring resonator photodiodes are attractive for silicon photonics integrated circuits due to their compactness, wavelength division multiplexing ability, and the absence of germanium growth. To analyze and evaluate the performance of the microring photodiode, we derived closed-form expression of the response transfer function with both electrical and optical behavior included, using a small-signal analysis. The thermo-optic nonlinearity resulting from optical loss and ohmic heating was simulated and considered in the model. The predicted response achieved close agreement with the experiment results, which provides an intuitive understanding of device performance. We analytically investigated the responsivity–bandwidth product and demonstrated that the performance is superior when the detuning frequency is zero.

Effects of Reflectance of Backsheets and Spacing between Cells on Photovoltaic Modules

In the photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing process, cell-to-module (CTM) loss is inevitably caused by the optical loss, and it generally leads to the output power loss of about 2~3%. It is known that the CTM loss rate can be reduced by increasing the reflectance of a backsheet and reflective area through widening spaces between the PV cell strings. In this study, multi-busbars (MBB) and shingled PV cells were connected in series, and a mini-module composed of four cells was fabricated with a white and black backsheet to investigate the effects of reflectance of backsheets and space between the PV cells. Moreover, the MBB modules with cell gap spaces of 0.5 mm, 1.5 mm, and 2.5 mm were demonstrated with fixed 3 mm spaces between the strings. The shingled modules with varying spaces from 2 mm to 6 mm were also tested, and our results show that spacing between PV cells and strings should be well-balanced to minimize the CTM loss to maximize the output power (efficiency).

Photoluminescence enhancement with all-dielectric coherent metasurfaces

Mie resonances have recently attracted much attention in research on dielectric metasurfaces, owning to their enriched multipole resonances, negligible optical loss, and efficient light emitter integration. Although there is a rapid advancement in this field, some fundamental developments are still required to provide a simpler and more versatile paradigm for photoluminescence (PL) control. In this work, we proposed that an all-dielectric coherent metasurface can engineer the PL response by tuning the array size. Such PL manipulation is attributed to the collective Mie resonances that mediate the inter-unit interactions between unit elements and alter the PL intensity. Metasurfaces with different chip sizes are utilized to explore the array size effect on the collective Mie resonances, field enhancement, and Q-factor in TiO2 metasurfaces. Incorporating the all-dielectric coherent metasurface with fluorescent photon emitters, we performed the dependence of PL enhancement on array size, which achieves an enhancement factor of ∼10 at the central area of a 90 × 90 μm2 TiO2 metasurface array. These findings provide an additional degree of freedom to engineer the near-field confinement and enhancement, allowing one to manipulate incoherent photon emission and tune light–matter interaction at the nanoscale.

Scalable and compact photonic neural chip with low learning-capability-loss

Photonic computation has garnered huge attention due to its great potential to accelerate artificial neural network tasks at much higher clock rate to digital electronic alternatives. Especially, reconfigurable photonic processor consisting of Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) mesh is promising for photonic matrix multiplier. It is desired to implement high-radix MZI mesh to boost the computation capability. Conventionally, three cascaded MZI meshes (two universal N × N unitary MZI mesh and one diagonal MZI mesh) are needed to express N × N weight matrix with O(N 2) MZIs requirements, which limits scalability seriously. Here, we propose a photonic matrix architecture using the real-part of one nonuniversal N × N unitary MZI mesh to represent the real-value matrix. In the applications like photonic neural network, it probable reduces the required MZIs to O(Nlog2 N) level while pay low cost on learning capability loss. Experimentally, we implement a 4 × 4 photonic neural chip and benchmark its performance in convolutional neural network for handwriting recognition task. Low learning-capability-loss is observed in our 4 × 4 chip compared to its counterpart based on conventional architecture using O(N 2) MZIs. While regarding the optical loss, chip size, power consumption, encoding error, our architecture exhibits all-round superiority.

The Method of Low-Temperature ICP Etching of InP/InGaAsP Heterostructures in Cl2-Based Plasma for Integrated Optics Applications

Chlorine processes are widely used for the formation of waveguide structures in InP-based optoelectronics. Traditionally, ICP etching of InP in a Cl2-based plasma requires substrate temperatures in the range of 150–200 °C. This condition is mandatory, since during the etching process low-volatility InClx components are formed and at insufficient temperatures are deposited onto substrate, leading to the formation of defects and further impossibility of the formation of waveguide structures. The need to preheat the substrate limits the application of chlorine processes. This paper presents a method of ICP etching an InP/InGaAsP heterostructure in a Cl2/Ar/N2 gas mixture. A feature of the developed method is the cyclic etching of the heterostructure without preliminary heating. The etching process starts at room temperature. In the optimal etching mode, the angle of inclination of the sidewalls of the waveguides reached 88.8° at an etching depth of more than 4.5 μm. At the same time, the surface roughness did not exceed 30 nm. The selectivity of the etching process with respect to the SiNx mask was equal to 9. Using the developed etching method, test integrated waveguide elements were fabricated. The fabricated active integrated waveguide (p-InP epitaxial layers were not removed) with a width of 2 μm demonstrated an optical loss around 11 ± 1.5 dB/cm at 1550 nm. The insertion loss of the developed Y- and MMI-splitters did not exceed 0.8 dB.

Highly Sensitive Plasmonic Refractive Index Sensor Based on Dual D-Shaped Photonic Crystal Fiber with Aluminum Nitride-Silver Films

A dual-core and dual D-shaped photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor with silver and Aluminum Nitride (AlN) films is designed. The distribution characteristics of the electromagnetic fields of core and plasmon modes, as well as the sensing properties are numerically studied by finite element method (FEM). The structure parameters of the designed sensor are optimized by the optical loss spectrum. The results show the resonance wavelength variation of 489 nm for the refractive index (RI) range of 1.36~1.42. In addition, a maximum wavelength sensitivity of 13400 nm/RIU with the corresponding RI resolution of 7.46×10-6 RIU is obtained in the RI range of 1.41~1.42. The proposed sensor with the merits of high sensitivity, low cost and simple structure has a wide application in the fields of RI sensing, such as hazardous gas detection, environmental monitoring and biochemical analysis.

Internal optical loss and light-current characteristic in injection lasers

Possibility of tailoring the light-current characteristic (LCC) shape in quantum dot (QD) lasers by varying uniformity of QDs is discussed. Making the QD ensemble less uniform results in roll-over in the LCC. The second branch in the LCC appears with making the QD ensemble even less uniform.

On-chip light detection using integrated microdisk laser and photodetector bonded onto Si board

Characteristics of a compact III–V optocoupler heterogeneously integrated on a silicon substrate and formed by a 31 µm in diameter microdisk (MD) laser with a closely-spaced 50 µm × 200 µm waveguide photodetector are presented. Both optoelectronic devices were fabricated from the epitaxial heterostroctructures with InGaAs/GaAs quantum well-dot layers. The measured dark current density of the photodetector was as low as 2.1 µA cm−2. The maximum link efficiency determined as the ratio of the photodiode photocurrent increment to the increment of the microlaser bias current was 1%–1.4%. The developed heterogeneous integration of III–V devices to silicon boards by Au-Au thermocompression bonding is useful for avoiding the difficulties associated with III–V epitaxial growth on Si and facilitates integration of several devices with different active layers and waveguides. The application of MD lasers with their lateral light output is promising for simplifying requirements for optical loss at III–V/Si interface.

A Review of the High-Power All-Solid-State Single-Frequency Continuous-Wave Laser

High-power all-solid-state single-frequency continuous-wave (CW) lasers have been applied in basic research such as atomic physics, precision measurement, radar and laser guidance, as well as defense and military fields owing to their intrinsic advantages of high beam quality, low noise, narrow linewidth, and high coherence. With the rapid developments of sciences and technologies, the traditional single-frequency lasers cannot meet the development needs of emerging science and technology such as quantum technology, quantum measurement and quantum optics. After long-term efforts and technical research, a novel theory and technology was proposed and developed for improving the whole performance of high-power all-solid-state single-frequency CW lasers, which was implemented by actively introducing a nonlinear optical loss and controlling the stimulated emission rate (SER) in the laser resonator. As a result, the output power, power and frequency stabilities, tuning range and intensity noise of the single-frequency lasers were effectively enhanced.