NanoPlasmonics, Microphotonics & Imaging

Research that includes:

  • Polymer, printed optical lenslet arrays
  • Microfluidic tuneable photopolymer lenses
  • Optical switches and planar lightwave MEMS
  • Vertically integrated microconfocal arrays
  • Bio-inspired integration of tuneable polymer optics with imaging electronics

BPN689: Hybrid Integration of III-V on Si/SiN Photonics Platform

Sangyoon Han
2012

Develop a technology for integrating III-V on Silicon and Silicon Nitride photonics platform

Project end date: 01/31/13

BPN692: DNA Sequencing by Graphene Nanopores with Integrated Plasmonic Nanoantennas

Chi-cheng Fu
Inhee Choi
SoonGweon Hong
2012

Atomically-thin nature of graphene nanopores make it possible to sequence single DNA molecules with base-pair resolution. However, conventional approaches to fabricate nanopores on graphene require expensive and sophisticated process such as electron beam sculpting/drilling. Here, we report a simple single-step fabrication for creating graphene nanopores with integrated plasmonic nanoantenna by photothermal effect of gold nanorods. Tunability of nanopore dimensions and optical properties of plasmonic nanoantennas has been demonstrated by controlling laser fluence. The optical...

BPN498: Integrated Silica Optomechanical Oscillators

Karen E. Grutter
Alejandro Grine
Niels Quack
Tristan Rocheleau
Turker Beyazoglu
2013

Optical microring/disk resonators are the central component in many micro-optical applications, including optomechanical devices. Optomechanical devices that use light to stimulate mechanical resonance have applications in displacement sensing, optical mixing, and reference oscillators. High optical Q is necessary for these applications, so we are exploring the use of silica, which has low optical loss. So far, using a wafer-scale reflow process, we have achieved an optical Q of 15 million and have observed self-excited optomechanical oscillations. We have also fabricated nitride...

BPN710: Reconfigurable Silicon Photonic Integrated Circuits

Sangyoon Han
2013

Silicon photonics has emerged as one of the key technologies for data communications, especially in datacenters. Using standard CMOS fabrication steps, optical modulators, photodetectors, and passive optical components have been realized. The photonic circuits demonstrated so far are mostly static. We are interested in dynamically reconfigurable or tunable circuits in Si photonics, such as tunable filters or optical switches. In this project, we integrate MEMS with Si photonics on an silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform. The optical waveguides and passive optical components are...

BPN595: Fast Optical Phased Array for 10MHz Beamforming

Mischa Megens
2014

We developed an optical phased array incorporating a single-layer high-index-contrast sub- wavelength grating (HCG) for 2D beamsteering. There are a number of other approaches for optical phased arrays such as liquid-crystal-based phased arrays and microelectromechanical system (MEMS) phased array. Switching of liquid-crystal based phased arrays typically takes on the order of milliseconds. Arrays of MEMS mirrors moving perpendicular to the substrate are usually made of silicon so that a metal-coated layer is required on top, resulting in thermal induced stress when very high optical...

BPN671: Tunable Silicon Photonics for Microsecond Wavelength Selective Switching

Anthony M. Yeh
2013

The wavelength selective switch (WSS) is a key enabling component for many optical circuit switching (OCS) architectures, which have the potential to allow datacenters to continue scaling beyond the cost and power efficiency constraints of current electrical networks. The applicability of these OCS networks in real-world datacenters is highly dependent on the speed and optical loss of the WSS elements. We have demonstrated a grating-based WSS in silicon photonics that improves on these metrics and allows greater integration potential relative to previously demonstrated MEMS-based WSS...

BPN678: MEMS-Electronic-Photonic Heterogeneous Integration (MEPHI)

Niels Quack
Behnam Behroozpour
Sangyoon Han
Phillip Sandborn
2014

Active III-V photonic components and passive Si photonic circuits are integrated with CMOS electronic circuits in this project. The modular MEMS-Electronic-Photonic Heterogeneous Integration (MEPHI) platform will make use of the high performance of the individual components and integrate (1) MEMS tunable VCSEL with high-index-contrast grating (HCG) mirrors, (2) photodetectors, (3) Si photonic waveguides, couplers, and interferometers, (4) high-efficiency vertical optical coupler between III-V and Si waveguides, and (5) CMOS circuits for frequency control and temperature compensation...

BPN651: Low Power, Low Noise Cavity Optomechanical Oscillators

Alejandro J. Grine
Turker Beyazoglu
Tristan Rocheleau
2014

Cavity optomechanics is a new and rapidly advancing field in which light is used to alter the properties of a mechanical element. Our project specifically aims to enhance mechanical motion by means of optical radiation pressure in a cavity of both high optical and mechanical quality factors. When enough light is built up in such a cavity, the mechanical self-oscillation results in precisely modulated light at the cavity output. Though there may be numerous applications for cavity optomechanics, we seek to use optomechanical oscillators as a replacement for power-hungry microwave...

BPN791: Integrated Photobioreactor with Optical Excitation Membranes (iPOEMs) for Efficient Photosynthetic Light Harvesting

Doyeon Bang
2015

Efficient photosynthetic light harvesting came into the spotlight due to the growing concerns on global energy crisis. However, non-uniform distribution of light in photobioreactor is one of major challenges for efficient photosynthetic light harvesting. We developed an integrated photobioreactor with optical excitation membranes (iPOEMs) by creating uniform optical antennas and scattering network in a flexible membrane. We demonstrated that iPOEMs are stable under temperature change (>80 ⁰C and <0 ⁰C) or illumination of intensive light (>50 mW/cm2). We developed iPOEMs with...

BPN609: Ultra-Sensitive Photodetectors on Silicon Photonics

Ryan Going
Tae Joon Seok
2015

As CMOS devices shrink in physical size, electrical interconnects between the devices will consume an ever-greater proportion of total chip power. A promising solution is to use silicon photonics for intra- and inter-chip communications. To be cost effective, both the optical transmitter and receiver should be made small, highly efficient, and CMOS compatible. Shrinking the photodiode will increase sensitivity and energy efficiency, but as it gets very small, the capacitance of the wire to the first amplifying stage in the receiver becomes significant. We present a solution which...