I-Corps: Universal Linear Integrated Photonic Device for Analog Computing

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of integrated universal linear photonic devices that perform fundamental computing operations with light. This invention performs real-time matrix-vector multiplication that is essential for classical and quantum optical information processing applications. In classical computing, this device is core for developing photonic chips for unconventional computing with photonic spin simulators, neuromorphic computing, and machine learning with analog photonic neural networks. In quantum information processing and quantum machine learning, a similar functionality is required for performing linear operations in photonic integrated circuits that manipulate quantum states of light. In addition to applications in optical computing, the proposed component may serve as a universal multi-input multi-output device for ultra-high-speed manipulation of light in photonic integrated circuits for a broad spectrum of purposes ranging from analog optical signal processing to metrology and sensing and involve applications in telecommunication and LiDAR.This I-Corps project is based on the development of photonic integrated circuits that perform analog matrix-vector multiplications with light. A universal photonic device that can perform arbitrary linear operations is an indispensable component of classical and quantum optical computing, while it also serves as a critical multiport circuit for advanced manipulation of light in photonic integrated circuits. One of the main limitations of integrated photonic matrix multipliers is their relatively large, compared to the wavelength of light, feature sizes that prevents their scaling to large numbers of ports. The proposed technology introduces a new architecture for realizing compact photonic circuits that perform arbitrary linear operations by dense packing of two building blocks: waveguides and phase shifters. The plan is to develop scalable and energy-efficient integrated photonic circuits that can perform arbitrary complex linear operations with light by utilizing this architecture. In addition, the goal is to develop programmable photonic circuits for general-purpose applications by incorporating tunable phase shifters.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.