Control of coherent information via on chip photonic-phononic emitter-receivers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel on-chip photon-phonon emitter-receiver mechanism enabling advanced, wavelength-insensitive RF photonic filtering and signal processing in silicon photonics, leveraging slow acoustic phonons for efficient information control.

Contribution

It presents a new traveling-wave photon-phonon transduction method for coherent information processing, supporting GHz frequencies and enabling high-performance RF photonic filters.

Findings

Achieved wavelength-insensitive RF photonic filters with high selectivity.

Demonstrated efficient phonon emit-and-receive process between nanophotonic waveguides.

Supported 1-20 GHz frequency range for coherent information processing.

Abstract

Rapid progress in silicon photonics has fostered numerous chip-scale sensing, computing, and signal processing technologies. However, many crucial filtering and signal delay operations are difficult to perform with all-optical devices. Unlike photons propagating at luminal speeds, GHz-acoustic phonons with slow velocity allow information to be stored, filtered, and delayed over comparatively smaller length-scales with remarkable fidelity. Hence, controllable and efficient coupling between coherent photons and phonons enables new signal processing technologies that greatly enhance the performance and potential impact of silicon photonics. Here, we demonstrate a novel mechanism for coherent information processing based on traveling-wave photon-phonon transduction, which achieves a phonon emit-and-receive process between distinct nanophotonic waveguides. Using this device physics-which can support 1-20GHz frequencies-we create wavelength-insensitive radio-frequency photonic filters with an unrivaled combination of stopband attenuation, selectivity, linewidth, and power-handling in silicon. More generally, this emit-receive concept is the impetus for numerous powerful new signal processing schemes.