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What is — and what is not — an optical isolator

Nature Photonics volume 7, pages 579–582 (2013)Cite this article

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The quest for on-chip optical isolators has recently spawned many new isolator structures. However, there has been some confusion about the requirement of nonreciprocity. Here, we review the essential characteristics of an isolator.

Optical isolators are devices that block light in one direction but allow light to pass in the opposite direction. This is important, for example, when one wants to protect a laser from back reflections, which can disturb the laser operation, or to mitigate multipath interference in an optical communication system. Moreover, the use of an isolator generally improves the designability of an overall system as it suppresses spurious interferences, interactions between different devices and undesired light routing.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: The simplest isolator with two single-mode waveguide ports.
Figure 3

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dirk Jalas, Alexander Petrov and Manfred Eich are at the Institute of Optical and Electronic Materials, Hamburg University of Technology, D-21073 Hamburg, Germany,

    Dirk Jalas, Alexander Petrov & Manfred Eich

  2. Wolfgang Freude is at the Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics and Institute of Microstructure Technology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany,

    Wolfgang Freude

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering, Shanhui Fan and Zongfu Yu are at Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA,

    Shanhui Fan & Zongfu Yu

  4. INTEC Department and Center for Nano- and Biophotonics, Roel Baets is at the Photonics Research Group, Ghent University-IMEC, B-9000 Gent, Belgium,

    Roel Baets

  5. Miloš Popović is at the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80302, USA,

    Miloš Popović

  6. Andrea Melloni is at Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milano, Italy,

    Andrea Melloni

  7. John D. Joannopoulos is at the Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA,

    John D. Joannopoulos

  8. Mathias Vanwolleghem is at Institut d'Electronique de Micro-electronique et de Nanotechnologie, CNRS, Université Lille 1, 59650 Villeneuve d'Ascq, France,

    Mathias Vanwolleghem

  9. Christopher R. Doerr is at Acacia Communications Inc., Three Clock Tower Place, Suite 210, Maynard, Massachusetts 01754, USA,

    Christopher R. Doerr

  10. Hagen Renner is at the Institute of Optical Communication Technology, Hamburg University of Technology, D-21073 Hamburg, Germany,

    Hagen Renner

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  1. Dirk Jalas
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  4. Wolfgang Freude
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Correspondence to Alexander Petrov.

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Christopher R. Doerr is working at Acacia Communications Inc.

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Jalas, D., Petrov, A., Eich, M. et al. What is — and what is not — an optical isolator. Nature Photon 7, 579–582 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.185

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