Ultracompact on-chip silicon optical logic gates

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates ultracompact, passive silicon optical AND and NAND logic gates on-chip, achieving high contrast and phase tolerance, advancing the development of nanophotonic processors for optical computing.

Contribution

It introduces a novel design of all-passive, ultracompact silicon optical logic gates using photonic crystal heterojunction diodes, enabling scalable on-chip optical computing.

Findings

Over 10dB contrast in transmission spectra

High phase tolerance of the logic gates

Agreement with numerical simulations

Abstract

All-optical integrated circuits for computing and information processing have been pursued for decades as a potential strategy to overcome the speed limitations intrinsic to electronics. However feasible on-chip integrated logic units and devices still have been limited by its size, quality, scalability, and reliability. Here we demonstrate all-passive on-chip optical AND and NAND logic gates made from a directional emitting cavity connecting two ultrasmall photonic crystal heterojunction diodes. The measured transmission spectra show more than 10dB contrast of the logic transport with a high phase tolerance, agreeing well with numerical simulations. The building of linear, passive, and ultracompact silicon optical logic gates might pave the way to construct novel nanophotonic on-chip processor architectures for future optical computing technologies.