Silicon photonics articles from across Nature Portfolio

Strain-engineered pseudomagnetic fields realized in two-dimensional photonic crystals induce flat-band Landau levels at discrete energies as well as chiral edge states. The high density of states and high degeneracy of the flat bands has implications for both on-chip and radiating light fields.

Photonic Landau levels are demonstrated via a strain-induced pseudomagnetic field in a silicon photonic crystal slab.

The integration of transition metal thio/selenophosphates (TPS) like CuInPS and CuCrPS onto Silicon Photonics marks a significant advancement in optical devices. This innovation provides precise control over refractive index, minimizes optical losses, enhances modulation efficiency, and reduces the footprint for next-generation optoelectronics.

Silicon carbide polytypes (SiC) exhibit second-order optic nonlinearity to act as on-chip nonlinear and quantum light sources, but their integration is typically challenging. The authors demonstrate the performance of 3C-SiC --a fully integrable polytype-- as an on-chip quantum light source based on its second-order susceptibility.

A silicon photonics modulator design approach is proposed, in which the inductive networks and termination resistors are designed in conjunction with the optical phase shifter. A complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) silicon photonics transmitter developed with this approach achieved 112 gigabaud transmission with an energy efficiency better than 1 pJ per bit.

Topological photonics has promised new devices that are resistant to backscattering, leading to lower loss, greater nonlinearity, and smaller footprint. New research shows that in reciprocal photonic crystals, backscattering is unavoidable, implying that breaking reciprocity is essential to leveraging photonic Chern insulators.