Optimal Design of Arbitrary Waveguide Bends for Footprint-Efficient and Low-Loss Silicon Photonic Resonators

Overview

Kartik Srinivasan, Microsystems and Nanotechnology Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD Integration of photonics components onto chips has revolutionized modern data communications and sensing, as it allows for the mass fabrication of devices which can transmit and guide light at the scale of the wavelength of light itself. Circular ring resonators, in particular, are used to transform continuous input light into pulse trains which find applications in accurate time keeping, distance ranging, sensing, and metrology. Since the pulse train is driven by the distance traveled by light in each roundtrip, the gigahertz bandwidths needed for these technologies require rings with relatively large millimeter-scale circumferences, defeating the purpose of compactness associated with integration. The implementation of ‘racetrack’ resonators has long been proposed as a way to achieve a large circumference with minimal footprint, however their dispersion—which must be controlled for stable pulse generation—is more difficult to engineer because they lack the radial symmetry of rings, making straightforward design a challenge. In this paper, I address this challenge by presenting a differential application of transformation optics from bulk propagation modified for nanophotonics. This mathematical transformation will be used to unravel periodic resonators such as racetracks into straight- waveguide tapering optimization problems which are simple to dispersion engineer. This tool will open the door for intuitive design and simulation of previously inaccessible resonator structures by mapping rotationally asymmetric resonators into equivalent straight waveguides with translational symmetry. This unprecedented control over light-matter interaction in resonators will allow for the design of footprint-efficient racetracks for quantum frequency conversion, synthetic frequency dimensions, and frequency comb generation. 54

Competition history

• JSHS 2023 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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