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Programmable photonic circuits

Nature volume 586, pages 207–216 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

The growing maturity of integrated photonic technology makes it possible to build increasingly large and complex photonic circuits on the surface of a chip. Today, most of these circuits are designed for a specific application, but the increase in complexity has introduced a generation of photonic circuits that can be programmed using software for a wide variety of functions through a mesh of on-chip waveguides, tunable beam couplers and optical phase shifters. Here we discuss the state of this emerging technology, including recent developments in photonic building blocks and circuit architectures, as well as electronic control and programming strategies. We cover possible applications in linear matrix operations, quantum information processing and microwave photonics, and examine how these generic chips can accelerate the development of future photonic circuits by providing a higher-level platform for prototyping novel optical functionalities without the need for custom chip fabrication.

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Fig. 1: Universal 2 × 2 optical gates.
Fig. 2: Forward-only meshes of 2 × 2 optical gates.
Fig. 3: Recirculating waveguide meshes.
Fig. 4: Technology stack for programmable photonic circuits.
Fig. 5: Applications for programmable photonic circuits.

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Acknowledgements

D.A.B.M. acknowledges support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) under award number FA9550-17-1-0002. D.E. acknowledges support from AFOSR award FA9550-16-1-0391 and Air Force Research Laboratory award FA8750-16-2-0141. W.B. acknowledges the European Research Council (ERC) for support through consolidator grant number 725555 (PhotonicSWARM) and the European H2020 programme for project grant 780283 (MORPHIC). J.C. and D.P. acknowledge the European Research Council (ERC) for support through advanced grant number 741415 (UMWPCHIP), Proof of Concept Grant 859927 (FPPAs) and Spanish Grant Juan de la Cierva. F.M. and A.M. acknowledge the European Commission for support through H2020 grant number 829116 (Super-Pixels) and Polifab, Politecnico di Milano for supporting the review of technology aspects.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IMEC, Department of Information Technology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Wim Bogaerts

  2. Center of Nano- and Biophotonics, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Wim Bogaerts

  3. Universitat Politècnica València, ITEAM Research Institute, Valencia, Spain

    Daniel Pérez & José Capmany

  4. iPronics, Programmable Photonics, Valencia, Spain

    Daniel Pérez & José Capmany

  5. Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    David A. B. Miller

  6. Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Halle, Germany

    Joyce Poon

  7. Edward S. Rogers Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Joyce Poon

  8. Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Dirk Englund

  9. Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Francesco Morichetti & Andrea Melloni

Authors
  1. Wim Bogaerts
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  2. Daniel Pérez
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  3. José Capmany
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  4. David A. B. Miller
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  5. Joyce Poon
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  6. Dirk Englund
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  7. Francesco Morichetti
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  8. Andrea Melloni
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Contributions

W.B. coordinated the work on this Review, and all authors contributed to the writing and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wim Bogaerts.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature thanks Daniel Brunner, Michael Steel and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Bogaerts, W., Pérez, D., Capmany, J. et al. Programmable photonic circuits. Nature 586, 207–216 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2764-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2764-0

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