Inverse design for compact magneto-optics

紧凑型磁光器件的逆向设计

• 批准号: EP/W016486/1
• 负责人: Robert Bennett
• 金额: $ 30.08万
• 依托单位: University of Glasgow
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FW016486%2F1
• 关键词: Inverse; design; compact; magneto; optics

Much of the modern world relies on communication using fibre optic cables. These are essentially long tubes of glass through which pulses of light can be sent, transferring information from one end to the other. Filtering and manipulation of the light before or after the fibre optic cable enables the pulses of light to be converted to and from human-readable information. In an analogy with how electronic devices manipulate electrons, such light-manipulating devices work with photons, so their design and characterisation is the field of photonics. In the same way as miniaturisation has dramatically improved the performance of electronics, photonic devices will become more and more commonplace as their dimensions are reduced. One photonic component that has proved particularly difficult to shrink is the optical isolator, which allows light to propagate in one direction but not in the other. These are used extensively in fibre optical communication and are beginning to find a role in the object detection systems used in self-driving cars (LiDAR). They are typically built using a class of materials exhibiting a phenomenon known as the magneto-optic effect, which can be exploited to allow unidirectional propagation. Attempts to create smaller devices using the same materials have run into significant problems. These are mostly related to some practical issues encountered when very precisely manipulating magneto-optical materials at microscopic scales.A route around this is to use a material more suited to use in very tiny devices. An obvious candidate is silicon, as the vast existing infrastructure for computer processors means silicon-based manufacturing is very advanced. Unfortunately, silicon has weak magneto-optical properties, so it seems unsuitable for use as an optical isolator. This project will sidestep this difficulty using a technique known as inverse design, in which the human is removed from the design process. Instead, a computer uses efficient algorithms to determine an optimal structure to achieve a particular goal. This technique has been shown to dramatically increase the performance of all kinds of devices in various contexts. In this project, the team will apply the algorithm in such a way that designs for high-performance, miniaturised optical isolators will be the end result. These will be small enough to be built into compact photonic devices, improving for example the performance of fibre-optical communications or the technology used in automated vehicles.

现代世界的大部分地区都依赖于使用光纤电缆的通信。这些基本上是长的玻璃管，通过它可以发送光脉冲，将信息从一端传递到另一端。在光纤电缆之前或之后对光进行过滤和操纵，使光脉冲能够转换为人类可读的信息。与电子设备如何操纵电子类似，这种光操纵设备与光子一起工作，因此它们的设计和表征属于光子学领域。就像光子技术极大地提高了电子器件的性能一样，随着光子器件尺寸的减小，它们将变得越来越普遍。一个被证明特别难以缩小的光子元件是光隔离器，它允许光在一个方向上传播，但不能在另一个方向上传播。这些被广泛用于光纤通信，并开始在自动驾驶汽车（LiDAR）中使用的物体检测系统中发挥作用。它们通常使用一类表现出被称为磁光效应的现象的材料来构建，该现象可以被利用来允许单向传播。尝试使用相同的材料制造更小的设备遇到了重大问题。这些问题主要涉及在微观尺度上精确操纵磁光材料时遇到的一些实际问题，解决这一问题的一条途径是使用更适合用于非常微小的器件的材料。一个明显的候选者是硅，因为计算机处理器的庞大现有基础设施意味着基于硅的制造非常先进。不幸的是，硅具有弱的磁光特性，因此它似乎不适合用作光隔离器。该项目将使用一种称为逆向设计的技术来回避这一困难，在这种技术中，人类将从设计过程中移除。相反，计算机使用有效的算法来确定实现特定目标的最佳结构。这种技术已被证明可以显著提高各种设备在各种环境中的性能。在这个项目中，该团队将以这样一种方式应用该算法，即最终结果将是高性能、集成化的光隔离器的设计。它们将足够小，可以内置到紧凑的光子器件中，例如提高光纤通信的性能或自动驾驶汽车中使用的技术。

项目成果

Inverse design of arbitrary optical helicity patterns

• DOI: 10.1103/physrevresearch.5.033076
• 发表时间: 2022-11
• 期刊: Physical Review Research
• 影响因子: 4.2
• 作者: Romuald Kilianski;R. Bennett