The Orbital Angular Momentum of Light for Ultra-High Capacity Data Centers

The potential of orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light in data center scenarios is presented. OAMs can be exploited for short reach ultra-high bit rate fiber links and as additional multiplexing domain in transparent ultra-high capacity optical switches. Recent advances on OAM integrated photonic technology are also reported. Finally demonstration of OAM-based fiber links (aggregate throughput 17.9 Tb/s) and two layers OAM-WDM-based optical switches are presented exploiting OAM integrated components and demonstrating the achievable benefits in terms of size, weight and power consumption (SWaP) compared to different technologies

High precision integrated photonic thermometry enabled by a transfer printed diamond resonator on GaN waveguide chip

We demonstrate a dual-material integrated photonic thermometer, fabricated by high accuracy micro-transfer printing. A freestanding diamond micro-disk resonator is printed in close proximity to a gallium nitride on a sapphire racetrack resonator, and respective loaded Q factors of 9.1 × 104 and 2.9 × 104 are measured. We show that by using two independent wide-bandgap materials, tracking the thermally induced shifts in multiple resonances, and using optimized curve fitting tools the measurement error can be reduced to 9.2 mK. Finally, for the GaN, in a continuous acquisition measurement we record an improvement in minimum Allan variance, occurring at an averaging time four times greater than a comparative silicon device, indicating better performance over longer time scales

Multimode Free Space Optical Link Enabled by SiP Integrated Meshes

A silicon photonic mesh of tuneable Mach-Zehnder Interferometers (MZIs) is employed to receive two spatially-overlapped Hermite-Gaussian beams modulated at 10 Gbit/s, sharing the same wavelength and state of polarization. The mesh automatically self-configures, separating and sorting the two beams out without any excess loss

Self-Configuring Silicon-Photonic Receiver for Multimode Free Space Channels

A self-configuring mesh of silicon Mach-Zehnder Interferometers is employed to receive two spatially overlapped orthogonal beams modulated at 10 Gbit/s. These beams, sharing the same wavelength and state of polarization, are separated with more than 30 dB isolation, and sorted out with no signal degradation

Separating arbitrary free-space beams with an integrated photonic processor

Free-space optics naturally offers multiple-channel communications and sensing exploitable in many applications. The different optical beams will, however, generally be overlapping at the receiver, and, especially with atmospheric turbulence or other scattering or aberrations, the arriving beam shapes may not even be known in advance. We show that such beams can be still separated in the optical domain, and simultaneously detected with negligible cross-talk, even if they share the same wavelength and polarization, and even with unknown arriving beam shapes. The kernel of the adaptive multibeam receiver presented in this work is a programmable integrated photonic processor that is coupled to free-space beams through a two-dimensional array of optical antennas. We demonstrate separation of beam pairs arriving from different directions, with overlapping spatial modes in the same direction, and even with mixing between the beams deliberately added in the path. With the circuit’s optical bandwidth of more than 40 nm, this approach offers an enabling technology for the evolution of FSO from single-beam to multibeam space-division multiplexed systems in a perturbed environment, which has been a game-changing transition in fiber-optic systems

Nanoscale accurate heterogeneous integration of waveguide devices by transfer printing

The vertical micro-assembly of membrane photonic devices across a range of materials is presented, including polymers, silicon and III-V semiconductors. Fully-fabricated waveguide structures are integrated with sub-100nm absolute placement accuracy. Light-emitting diodes, silicon photonics and nanowire lasers are examples of the deployment of this technique

Hybrid integration of an evanescently coupled AlGaAs micro-disk resonator with a silicon waveguide by nanoscale-accurate transfer printing

Hybrid integration of a III-V micro-disk resonator on a silicon-on-insulator waveguide platform is demonstrated. Transfer printing with nanoscale accuracy is used to micro-assemble an evanescently coupled all-pass micro-disk resonator, with a targeted coupler gap of 100 nm using pre-fabricated AlGaAs and silicon components. Transmission measurements show hybrid resonances with a loaded Q-factor of 7x103 and cavity finesse of over 100

OpenFlow-Control of an OAM-Based Two-Layer Switch Supporting 100Gb/s Real Data-Traffic

A two-layer orbital angular momentum and wavelength based switch is presented and characterized up to 100Gb/s with coherent polarization-multiplexed real data traffic. The switch is successfully reconfigured by applying an OpenFlow based SDN control plane

Integrated Nonlinear Photonics in AlGaAs-on-insulator Devices

The heterogeneous integration of AlGaAs-on-insulator (AlGaAs-OI) has proven to be a powerful material platform for nonlinear optics. This talk will explore how chip-scale bonding and transfer printing techniques can be used for the fabrication of these integrated photonic chips for highly efficient second- and third-order non-linear applications

Integrated AlGaAs Devices for Non-linear Applications

The heterogeneous integration of AlGaAs-on-insulator has great potential for nonlinear optics. This talk will explore chip-scale bonding and transfer printing techniques for the development of integrated photonic chips for second- and third-order non-linear applications