Zeyu Pan

Printed photonic elements: Nanoimprinting and beyond

In order to manufacture large-scale photonic devices of various dimensions at a low cost, a number of patterning techniques have been developed. Nanoimprint lithography is among the most promising given its unique advantages, such as high resolution, fast processing speed, high throughput, compatibility with diverse materials, and low cost. This review covers various aspects of nanoimprint lithography, including its operational principles, material requirements, and different ways of implementation. Nanoimprint lithography facilitates numerous high-performance and low-cost photonic elements, including optical interconnects, sensors, solar cells, and metamaterials. In addition, other related patterning techniques, together with their utilization for photonic device fabrication and their integration with nanoimprint lithography, are briefly discussed.

Design of Highly Efficient Hybrid Si-Au Taper for Dielectric Strip Waveguide to Plasmonic Slot Waveguide Mode Converter

In this paper, we design a dielectric-to-plasmonic slot waveguide mode converter based on the hybrid silicon-gold taper. The effects of mode matching, the effective index matching, and the metallic absorption loss on the conversion efficiency are studied. Consequently, a metallic taper-funnel coupler with an overall length of 1.7 μm is designed to achieve a very high conversion efficiency of 93.3% at 1550 nm. The configuration limitations for not allowing this mode converter to achieve a 100% conversion efficiency are also investigated. Such a high-efficiency converter can provide practical routes to realize ultracompact integrated circuits.

Integrated Broadband Bowtie Antenna on Transparent Silica Substrate

The bowtie antenna is a topic of growing interest in recent years. In this letter, we design, fabricate, and characterize a modified gold bowtie antenna integrated on a transparent silica substrate. The bowtie antenna is designed with broad RF bandwidth to cover the X-band in the electromagnetic spectrum. We numerically investigate the antenna characteristics, specifically its resonant frequency and enhancement factor. Our designed bowtie antenna provides a strong broadband electric field enhancement in its feed gap. Taking advantage of the low-k silica substrate, high enhancement factor can be achieved without the unwanted reflection and scattering from the backside silicon handle, which is the issue of using a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate. We simulate the dependence of resonance frequency on bowtie geometry, and verify the simulation results through experimental investigation, by fabricating different sets of bowtie antennas on silica substrates and then measuring their resonance frequencies. In addition, the far-field radiation pattern of the bowtie antenna is measured, and it shows dipole-like characteristics with large beamwidth. Such a broadband antenna will be useful for a myriad of applications, ranging from photonic electromagnetic wave sensing to wireless communications.

Reconfigurable thermo-optic polymer switch based true-time-delay network utilizing imprinting and inkjet printing

Reconfigurable true-time-delay lines, comprising of 2×2 thermo-optic polymer switches and rib waveguides are fabricated utilizing a combination of roll-to-roll (R2R) compatible UV imprinting and ink-jet printing, which promises high throughput and low cost photonic devices.

Ultra-compact and wide-spectrum-range thermo-optic switch based on silicon coupled photonic crystal microcavities

We design, fabricate, and experimentally demonstrate a compact thermo-optic gate switch comprising a 3.78 μm-long coupled L0-type photonic crystal microcavities on a silicon-on-insulator substrate. A nanohole is inserted in the center of each individual L0 photonic crystal microcavity. Coupling between identical microcavities gives rise to bonding and anti-bonding states of the coupled photonic molecules. The coupled photonic crystal microcavities are numerically simulated and experimentally verified with a 6 nm-wide flat-bottom resonance in its transmission spectrum, which enables wider operational spectrum range than microring resonators. An integrated micro-heater is in direct contact with the silicon core to efficiently drive the device. The thermo-optic switch is measured with an optical extinction ratio of 20 dB, an on-off switching power of 18.2 mW, a thermo-optic tuning efficiency of 0.63 nm/mW, a rise time of 14.8 μs, and a fall time of 18.5 μs. The measured on-chip loss on the transmission band ...

One-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Slot Waveguide for Silicon-Organic Hybrid Electro-Optic Modulators

In an on-chip silicon-organic hybrid electro-optic (EO) modulator, the mode overlap with EO materials, in-device effective r33, and propagation loss are among the most critical factors that determine the performance of the modulator. Various waveguide structures have been proposed to optimize these factors, yet there is a lack of comprehensive consideration on all of them. In this Letter, a one-dimensional (1D) photonic crystal (PC) slot waveguide structure is proposed that takes all these factors into consideration. The proposed structure takes advantage of the strong mode confinement within a low-index region in a conventional slot waveguide and the slow-light enhancement from the 1D PC structure. Its simple geometry makes it robust to resist fabrication imperfections and helps reduce the propagation loss. Using it as a phase shifter in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer structure, an integrated silicon-organic hybrid EO modulator was experimentally demonstrated. The observed effective EO coefficient is as high as 490 pm/V. The measured half-wave voltage and length product is less than 1  V·cm and can be further improved. A potential bandwidth of 61 GHz can be achieved and further improved by tailoring the doping profile. The proposed structure offers a competitive novel phase-shifter design, which is simple, highly efficient, and with low optical loss, for on-chip silicon-organic hybrid EO modulators.

Design of a plasmonic-organic hybrid slot waveguide integrated with a bowtie-antenna for terahertz wave detection

Electromagnetic (EM) wave detection over a large spectrum has recently attracted significant amount of attention. Traditional electronic EM wave sensors use large metallic probes which distort the field to be measured and also have strict limitations on the detectable RF bandwidth. To address these problems, integrated photonic EM wave sensors have been developed to provide high sensitivity and broad bandwidth. Previously we demonstrated a compact, broadband, and sensitive integrated photonic EM wave sensor, consisting of an organic electro-optic (EO) polymer refilled silicon slot photonic crystal waveguide (PCW) modulator integrated with a gold bowtie antenna, to detect the X band of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, due to the relative large RC constant of the silicon PCW, such EM wave sensors can only work up to tens of GHz. In this work, we present a detailed design and discussion of a new generation of EM wave sensors based on EO polymer refilled plasmonic slot waveguides in conjunction with bowtie antennas to cover a wider electromagnetic spectrum from 1 GHz up to 10THz, including the range of microwave, millimeter wave and even terahertz waves. This antennacoupled plasmonic-organic hybrid (POH) structure is designed to provide an ultra-small RC constant, a large overlap between plasmonic mode and RF field, and strong electric field enhancement, as well as negligible field perturbation. A taper is designed to bridge silicon strip waveguide to plasmonic slot waveguide. Simulation results show that our device can have an EM wave sensing ability up to 10 THz. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first POH device for photonic terahertz wave detection.

Antenna-coupled silicon-organic hybrid integrated photonic crystal modulator for broadband electromagnetic wave detection

The detection and measurement of electromagnetic fields have attracted significant amounts of attention in recent years. Traditional electronic electromagnetic field sensors use large active conductive probes which perturb the field to be measured and also make the devices bulky. In order to address these problems, integrated photonic electromagnetic field sensors have been developed, in which an optical signal is modulated by an RF signal collected by a miniaturized antenna. In this work, we design, fabricate and characterize a compact, broadband and highly sensitive integrated photonic electromagnetic field sensor based on a silicon-organic hybrid modulator driven by a bowtie antenna. The large electro-optic (EO) coefficient of organic polymer, the slow-light effects in the silicon slot photonic crystal waveguide (PCW), and the broadband field enhancement provided by the bowtie antenna, are all combined to enhance the interaction of microwaves and optical waves, enabling a high EO modulation efficiency and thus a high sensitivity. The modulator is experimentally demonstrated with a record-high effective in-device EO modulation efficiency of r33=1230pm/V. Modulation response up to 40GHz is measured, with a 3-dB bandwidth of 11GHz. The slot PCW has an interaction length of 300μm, and the bowtie antenna has an area smaller than 1cm2. The bowtie antenna in the device is experimentally demonstrated to have a broadband characteristics with a central resonance frequency of 10GHz, as well as a large beam width which enables the detection of electromagnetic waves from a large range of incident angles. The sensor is experimentally demonstrated with a minimum detectable electromagnetic power density of 8.4mW/m2 at 8.4GHz, corresponding to a minimum detectable electric field of 2.5V/m and an ultra-high sensitivity of 0.000027V/m Hz-1/2 ever demonstrated. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first silicon-organic hybrid device and also the first PCW device used for the photonic detection of electromagnetic waves. Finally, we propose some future work, including a Teraherz wave sensor based on antenna-coupled electrooptic polymer filled plasmonic slot waveguide, as well as a fully packaged and tailgated device.

Integrated broadband bowtie antenna on transparent substrate

The bowtie antenna is a topic of growing interest in recent years. In this paper, we design, fabricate, and characterize a modified gold bowtie antenna integrated on a transparent glass substrate. We numerically investigate the antenna characteristics, specifically its resonant frequency and enhancement factor. We simulate the dependence of resonance frequency on bowtie geometry, and verify the simulation results through experimental investigation, by fabricating different sets of bowtie antennas on glass substrates utilizing CMOS compatible processes and measuring their resonance frequencies. Our designed bowtie antenna provides a strong broadband electric field enhancement in its feed gap. The far-field radiation pattern of the bowtie antenna is measured, and it shows dipole-like characteristics with large beam width. Such a broadband antenna will be useful for a myriad of applications, ranging from wireless communications to electromagnetic wave detection.

High optical coupling efficiency quasi-vertical taper for polymer waveguide devices

Quasi-Vertical tapers are designed to enable high coupling efficiency from a conventional single mode fiber into a single mode polymer rib waveguide. A triangular region fabricated under the single mode waveguide is adopted to adiabatically transform the fiber mode into the polymer rib waveguide mode. This structure works as an optical mode transformer. Because the trenches are deeper at the facets than at the active regions of the waveguide, the waveguide mode size in vertical direction becomes larger at the facets and can better match the input and output fiber mode. A coupling efficiency of 82.95% is achievable with a tip width of 1 μm.