Piezo-optomechanical cantilever modulators for VLSI visible photonics

Abstract

Visible-wavelength very large-scale integration photonic circuits have a potential to play important roles in quantum information and sensing technologies. The realization of scalable, high-speed, and low-loss photonic mesh circuits depends on reliable and well-engineered visible photonic components. Here, we report a low-voltage optical phase shifter based on piezo-actuated mechanical cantilevers, fabricated on a CMOS compatible, 200 mm wafer-based visible photonics platform. We show linear phase and amplitude modulation with 6 Vπ cm in differential operation, −1.5 to −2 dB insertion loss, and up to 40 dB contrast in the 700–780 nm range. By adjusting selected cantilever parameters, we demonstrate a low-displacement and a high-displacement device, both exhibiting a nearly flat frequency response from DC to a peak mechanical resonance at 23 and 6.8 MHz respectively, which, through resonant enhancement of Q ∼ 40, further decreases the operating voltage down to 0.15 Vπ cm.

Monolithically integrated, broadband, high-efficiency silicon nitride-on-silicon waveguide photodetectors in a visible-light integrated photonics platform

“…In Si photonics for the visible and NIR wavelength range, the optical waveguide is typically formed in a silicon nitride (SiN) or aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3 ) layer surrounded by a silicon dioxide (SiO 2 ) cladding on a Si or silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substate. Thus far, on 100, 200, or 300-mm diameter Si wafers, visible/NIR photonic platforms with SiN 3 , 5 , 17 – 21 or Al 2 O 3 3 , 4 waveguides are usually passive, containing components such as gratings, power splitters, and interferometers, with waveguide phase-shifters tuned by the thermo-optic or strain-optic effect 5 , 22 – 24 . Post-fabrication processing and heterogeneous integration steps are used to incorporate liquid crystal phase-shifters 25 , lasers 26 , 27 , and photodetectors (PDs) 28 , 29 with SiN waveguides.…”

An integrated photonic engine for programmable atomic control

“…However, photonic integration at visible wavelengths has largely been passive, in part because silicon nitride (SiN), the prevailing material for visible photonics, does not have a strong intrinsic electro-optic effect [28]. While methods to add fast active modulation to SiN or similar passive materials have been investigated, none combine large and broadband switching bandwidth (DC to few GHz) with small switching voltages (<5 V) [29][30][31][32][33][34]. Low switching voltages are important for direct compatibility with scalable high-speed complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) electronics operating at O(1 V) [35].…”

Scalable Control of Spin Quantum Memories in a Photonic Integrated Circuit

“…Here we demonstrate microwave control over many spins integrated into a scalable piezo-optomechanical photonics platform. In section II we describe on-chip spin control of diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers integrated into our PICs, fabricated in a wafer-scale, 200-mm CMOS-foundry process [4,5,28,29]. Our device structure, shown in Fig.…”