Complex nanophotonic and plasmonic networks for ultrafast optical devices

从光数据存储到宽带光纤互联网，光子技术在我们的社会中发挥着越来越重要的作用。随着电子学和纳米光子学迅速向混合纳米技术融合，集成光电电路中光的路由和控制出现了重要的开放挑战。在这个项目中，将开发一种概念上的新方法来实现可重构和可切换的光电路。我们选择广泛使用的硅基纳米光子平台。我们的新方法将通过光子波导与用于可重写dvd的硫族相变材料的集成而实现。将图案可逆地写入相变层将实现芯片上光信号路由的可重构器件。我们将通过利用受介观物理学启发的新型纳米光子器件研究光传输的技术，将相变技术的概念提升到一个新的水平。我们将设计二维光子层，其中光由许多可能的光路的相干混合控制。可重构的相变层将用作波前整形器，使光通过蚀刻在波导中的光子层。随后，超快光脉冲模式将被投射到波导上，以产生独立光路的超快调制。这种模式将通过一种新的超快脱混工艺来实现超快开关器件，这与传统的开关器件有着根本的不同。这些过程将通过硫族化物包层、纳米等离子体致动器的使用以及先进纳米结构（如光子石墨烯）的设计，从而利用光与固态量子电子学的类比来促进Kerr光学非线性的显著增强。我们的研究包括使用等离子体元件作为纳米级致动器来控制硫系光调制器。相反，我们将研究如何使用混合等离子体-硫族网络来实现光学忆阻器，这是神经结构的构建模块之一。这种光学元件将是朝着以类似大脑的方式传输信号迈出的第一步，这可能会导致全新的信息分配和处理模式。

Photonic technologies are playing an increasingly important role in our society with revolutionary applications ranging from optical data storage to broadband fibre internet. As electronics and nanophotonics are rapidly converging toward one hybrid nanotechnology, important open challenges arise related to the routing and control of light in integrated optoelectronic circuits. In this project, a conceptually new approach toward reconfigurable and switchable optical circuits will be developed. We choose the widely-used silicon-based nanophotonics platform. Our new approach will be enabled by the integration of photonic waveguides with chalcogenide phase-change materials that are used in rewritable DVDs. Reversible optical writing of patterns into the phase-change layer will achieve reconfigurable devices for routing of optical signals on a chip. We will take the concept of phase-change technology to the next level by exploiting the technology for studying light transport in fundamentally new types of nanophotonic devices inspired by mesoscopic physics. We will design two-dimensional photonic layers in which light is controlled by the coherent mixing of a number of possible light paths. The reconfigurable phase-change layer will be used as a wavefront shaper to send light through such photonic layers etched in the waveguide. Subsequently, a pattern of ultrafast light pulses will be projected onto the waveguide to produce an ultrafast modulation of the independent light paths. This pattern will be used to achieve ultrafast switching devices through a new process of ultrafast demixing, which is fundamentally different from conventional switching devices. These processes will be facilitated by the dramatic enhancement of the Kerr optical nonlinearity by the chalcogenide cladding, by the use of nanoplasmonic actuators, and through design of advanced nanostructures, such as photonic graphene, thereby exploiting the analogies of light with solid-state quantum electronics. Our studies include the use of plasmonic elements as nanoscale actuators to control the chalcogenide light modulator. Conversively, we will investigate how the hybrid plasmonic-chalcogenide networks can be used to achieve optical memristors, one of the building blocks of neural architectures. Such optical elements would be a first step toward routing of signals in a brain-like manner, which could lead to radically new modes of distribution and processing of information.