Nanophotonic Computational Design

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive computational method for designing linear nanophotonic devices that leverages the full parameter space, enabling the creation of complex, efficient, and robust structures without expert manual tuning.

Contribution

The authors present a novel computational approach that can design any linear nanophotonic device using full parameter space exploration, surpassing traditional parameter tuning methods.

Findings

Designed 3D, multi-modal nanophotonic structures with novel functionalities.

Achieved high efficiency and compact footprints in device designs.

Produced structures robust to wavelength, temperature shifts, and fabrication errors.

Abstract

In contrast to designing nanophotonic devices by tuning a handful of device parameters, we have developed a computational method which utilizes the full parameter space to design linear nanophotonic devices. We show that our method may indeed be capable of designing any linear nanophotonic device by demonstrating designed structures which are fully three-dimensional and multi-modal, exhibit novel functionality, have very compact footprints, exhibit high efficiency, and are manufacturable. In addition, we also demonstrate the ability to produce structures which are strongly robust to wavelength and temperature shift, as well as fabrication error. Critically, we show that our method does not require the user to be a nanophotonic expert or to perform any manual tuning. Instead, we are able to design devices solely based on the users desired performance specification for the device.