Organic emitters embedded in functional nanophotonic circuits

纳米光子集成电路(NPIC)通过将基于波导的元件与成熟的平面光学系统相结合，能够在芯片上实现复杂的光学功能。当使用具有高折射率对比度的波导材料时，强光学限制允许创建具有小占地面积和亚波长特征的紧凑光子电路。通过采用最初为实现集成电路而开发的现有制造技术，这些器件可以高成品率和重复性制造，具有大规模市场应用的潜力。NPIC尤其广泛用于芯片级传感和计量、光信号处理以及光学互连中的高带宽数据通信。最广泛使用的硅基NPIC在单片材料系统中实现时主要是无源器件。然而，由于缺乏有源功能，无法实现完全集成的系统，该系统包括光源、光探测器和布线元件，这是功能电路特别需要的。为了克服这些限制，在这个项目中，我们将通过与基于蒽衍生物和共晶的功能有机材料的混合集成来为这种无源无机材料系统提供主动功能，从而实现一类新的NPIC，并为研究光-物质相互作用提供新的工具。我们将通过将分子光源直接嵌入到波导器件的近场中，将基于宽带透明氮化硅的纳米光电子电路与有机发射器相结合。通过消逝耦合，有机发射体与底层无机光子结构的强烈相互作用将允许高效地将光提取到纳米光子电路中。利用纳米光子学的丰富工具箱，腔增强耦合将为可见光波长范围内的光谱应用提供量身定制的发射特性。此外，纳米光子元件将用于直接在芯片上对发射信号进行光学处理，从而实现具有纳米尺寸的全光子光源。我们将研究波导集成光源在高光强区域以及在低温下的少光子区的性能，以考察它们是否适合于单光子发射。时间分析将在芯片上进行，使用具有高时间分辨率的超导单光子探测器。与高性能的片上滤波元件相结合，将创建一个强大的平台来分析具有高时间分辨率和灵敏度的无机-有机混合光子系统的特性。在该项目中开发的平台将作为研究发光分子的原型可扩展试验台，并为研究芯片上的少数光子统计数据提供工具。

Nanophotonic integrated circuits (NPICs) enable the realization of complex optical functionalities on a chip by joining waveguide-based components with full-fledged planar optical systems. When waveguiding materials with high refractive index contrast are employed, strong optical confinement allows for creating compact photonic circuits with small footprint and sub-wavelength features. By employing established fabrication techniques originally developed for the realization of integrated electrical circuits, these devices can be fabricated with high yield and reproducibility with potential for mass-market applications. NPICs find in particular widespread use for chipscale sensing and metrology, optical signal processing and also data communication with high bandwidth in optical interconnects.The most widely used silicon-based NPICs are predominantly passive devices when realized in a monolithic material system. The lack of active functionality, however, precludes realizing fully integrated systems which contain light sources, light detectors and routing elements, as required especially for functional circuits. To overcome these limitations, in this project, we will provide active functionalities to such passive inorganic material systems through hybrid integration with functional organic materials based on anthracene derivatives and co-crystals, to enable a new class of NPICs, as well as for providing new tools to study light-matter interactions.We will combine nanophotonic circuits based on broadband transparent silicon nitride with organic emitters by embedding molecular light sources directly into the near field of waveguide devices. Through evanescent coupling, strong interaction of the organic emitter with the underlying inorganic photonic architecture will allow for efficient light extraction into the nanophotonic circuitry. Using the rich toolbox of nanophotonics, cavity-enhanced coupling will provide tailored emission properties for spectral applications in the visible wavelength range. In addition, nanophotonic elements will be used for optical processing of the emitted signal directly on the chip and thus allow for all-photonic light source implementations with nanoscale footprint. We will study the performance of waveguide integrated light sources both in the high intensity regime, as well as in the few photon regime at cryogenic temperatures to investigate their suitability for single photon emission. The temporal analysis will be carried out on-chip using superconducting single photon detectors with high timing resolution. In combination with high performance on-chip filter elements, a powerful platform will be created to analyze the properties of hybrid inorganic-organic photonic systems with high timing resolution and sensitivity. The platform developed within this project will serve as a prototype scalable testbed for investigating light-emitting molecules and provide the tools for studying few photon statistics on a chip.