31,996 research outputs found
Integrated Photonic AI Accelerators under Hardware Security Attacks: Impacts and Countermeasures
Integrated photonics based on silicon photonics platform is driving several
application domains, from enabling ultra-fast chip-scale communication in
high-performance computing systems to energy-efficient optical computation in
artificial intelligence (AI) hardware accelerators. Integrating silicon
photonics into a system necessitates the adoption of interfaces between the
photonic and the electronic subsystems, which are required for buffering data
and optical-to-electrical and electrical-to-optical conversions. Consequently,
this can lead to new and inevitable security breaches that cannot be fully
addressed using hardware security solutions proposed for purely electronic
systems. This paper explores different types of attacks profiting from such
breaches in integrated photonic neural network accelerators. We show the impact
of these attacks on the system performance (i.e., power and phase
distributions, which impact accuracy) and possible solutions to counter such
attacks
Silicon-Organic Hybrid (SOH) Mach-Zehnder Modulators for 100 Gbit/s On-Off Keying
Electro-optic modulators for high-speed on-off keying (OOK) are key
components of short- and mediumreach interconnects in data-center networks.
Besides small footprint and cost-efficient large-scale production, small drive
voltages and ultra-low power consumption are of paramount importance for such
devices. Here we demonstrate that the concept of silicon-organic hybrid (SOH)
integration is perfectly suited for meeting these challenges. The approach
combines the unique processing advantages of large-scale silicon photonics with
unrivalled electro-optic (EO) coefficients obtained by molecular engineering of
organic materials. In our proof-of-concept experiments, we demonstrate
generation and transmission of OOK signals with line rates of up to 100 Gbit/s
using a 1.1 mm-long SOH Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) which features a
{\pi}-voltage of only 0.9 V. This experiment represents not only the first
demonstration of 100 Gbit/s OOK on the silicon photonic platform, but also
leads to the lowest drive voltage and energy consumption ever demonstrated at
this data rate for a semiconductor-based device. We support our experimental
results by a theoretical analysis and show that the nonlinear transfer
characteristic of the MZM can be exploited to overcome bandwidth limitations of
the modulator and of the electric driver circuitry. The devices are fabricated
in a commercial silicon photonics line and can hence be combined with the full
portfolio of standard silicon photonic devices. We expect that high-speed
power-efficient SOH modulators may have transformative impact on short-reach
optical networks, enabling compact transceivers with unprecedented energy
efficiency that will be at the heart of future Ethernet interfaces at Tbit/s
data rates
Complex effective index in graphene-silicon waveguides
We report for the first time and characterize experimentally the complex optical
conductivity of graphene on silicon photonic waveguides. This permits us to predict
accurately the behavior of photonic integrated devices encompassing graphene layers.
Exploiting a Si microring add/drop resonator, we show the effect of electrical gating of
graphene on the complex effective index of the waveguide by measuring both the wavelength
shift of the resonance and the change in the drop peak transmission. Due to electro-refractive
effect of graphene a giant (>10 123) change in the effective index is demonstrated for the first
time on Si photonics waveguides and this large effect will crucially impact performances and
consumption of Si photonics devices. We confirmed the results by two independent
experiments involving two different gating schemes: Si gating through the ridge waveguide,
and polymer-electrolyte gating. Both the experiments demonstrate a very large phase effect in
good agreement with numerical calculations. The reported results validate the Kubo model
for the case of graphene-Si photonics interfaces and for propagation in this type of
waveguide. This is fundamental for the next design and fabrication of future graphene-silicon
photonics devices
An Integrated-Photonics Optical-Frequency Synthesizer
Integrated-photonics microchips now enable a range of advanced
functionalities for high-coherence applications such as data transmission,
highly optimized physical sensors, and harnessing quantum states, but with
cost, efficiency, and portability much beyond tabletop experiments. Through
high-volume semiconductor processing built around advanced materials there
exists an opportunity for integrated devices to impact applications cutting
across disciplines of basic science and technology. Here we show how to
synthesize the absolute frequency of a lightwave signal, using integrated
photonics to implement lasers, system interconnects, and nonlinear frequency
comb generation. The laser frequency output of our synthesizer is programmed by
a microwave clock across 4 THz near 1550 nm with 1 Hz resolution and
traceability to the SI second. This is accomplished with a heterogeneously
integrated III/V-Si tunable laser, which is guided by dual
dissipative-Kerr-soliton frequency combs fabricated on silicon chips. Through
out-of-loop measurements of the phase-coherent, microwave-to-optical link, we
verify that the fractional-frequency instability of the integrated photonics
synthesizer matches the reference-clock instability for a 1
second acquisition, and constrain any synthesis error to while
stepping the synthesizer across the telecommunication C band. Any application
of an optical frequency source would be enabled by the precision optical
synthesis presented here. Building on the ubiquitous capability in the
microwave domain, our results demonstrate a first path to synthesis with
integrated photonics, leveraging low-cost, low-power, and compact features that
will be critical for its widespread use.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
Tunable delay lines in silicon photonics: coupled resonators and photonic crystals, a comparison
In this paper, we report a direct comparison between coupled resonator optical waveguides (CROWs) and photonic crystal waveguides (PhCWs), which have both been exploited as tunable delay lines. The two structures were fabricated on the same silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technological platform, with the same fabrication facilities and evaluated under the same signal bit-rate conditions. We compare the frequency- and time-domain response of the two structures; the physical mechanism underlying the tuning of the delay; the main limits induced by loss, dispersion, and structural disorder; and the impact of CROW and PhCW tunable delay lines on the transmission of data stream intensity and phase modulated up to 100 Gb/s. The main result of this study is that, in the considered domain of applications, CROWs and PhCWs behave much more similarly than one would expect. At data rates around 100 Gb/s, CROWs and PhCWs can be placed in competition. Lower data rates, where longer absolute delays are required and propagation loss becomes a critical issue, are the preferred domain of CROWs fabricated with large ring resonators, while at data rates in the terabit range, PhCWs remain the leading technology
Correlation between pattern density and linewidth variation in silicon photonics waveguides
We describe the correlation between the measured width of silicon waveguides fabricated with 193 nm lithography and the local pattern density of the mask layout. In the fabrication process, pattern density can affect the composition of the plasma in a dry etching process or the abrasion rate in a planarization step. Using an optical test circuit to extract waveguide width and thickness, we sampled 5841 sites over a fabricated wafer. Using this detailed sampling, we could establish the correlation between the linewidth and average pattern density around the test circuit, as a function of the radius of influence. We find that the intra-die systematic width variation correlates most with the pattern density within a radius of 200 gm, with a correlation coefficient of 0.57. No correlation between pattern density and the intra-die systematic thickness variation is observed. These findings can be used to predict photonic circuit yield or to optimize the circuit layout to minimize the effect of local pattern density. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreemen
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