Electronic-photonic integrated circuits for on-chip optical isolation

稳定的激光源是数据通信、电信、量子信息、微波光子学以及生物医学传感和诊断系统中许多光子学相关应用的基本要求。在这样的系统中，激光器为各种设备提供必要的光源，但是从这样的设备反射回激光器会导致激光器不稳定、波动、噪声甚至故障。因此，大多数实际的实现需要在激光器的输出处使用光学隔离器，以允许光仅在前向方向上传输。然而，如果不使用磁光材料，就无法实现真正的光隔离器，而磁光材料集成到低成本、大容量的硅光子平台中的成本非常高。通常，相关的包装成本使激光器的价格增加了十倍。迫切需要一种与硅光子和CMOS平台兼容的新型光隔离拓扑，以确保当前和未来的光学产品具有更好的性能和可行性。UBC、英特尔和Lumerical之间的这个合作项目将专注于分析和开发这种新的拓扑结构，对硅光子学应用的大领域产生潜在影响。

A stable laser source is an essential requirement for many photonics-related applications in data communications, telecommunications, quantum information, microwave photonics, and biomedical sensing and diagnostics systems. In such systems, laser provides the requisite light source to various devices, but reflections from such devices back into the laser causes laser instability, fluctuations, noise and even failures. Hence, most practical implementations require the use of optical isolators at the output of the laser to allow light transmission in only the forward direction. However, a true optical isolator cannot be realized without the use of magneto-optical materials, which are extremely costly to integrate into low-cost, high-volume silicon photonic platforms. Often, the associated packaging cost increases the price of a laser by ten-fold. A new topology for optical isolation, compatible to silicon photonic and CMOS platforms, is critically needed to ensure better performance and feasibility for current and future optical products. This collaborative project between UBC, Intel and Lumerical will focus on analyzing and developing such a new topology, with potential impact to the large field of silicon photonics applications.