High-speed non-volatile barium titanate field-programmable photonic gate array

Area of Science:

• Integrated photonics
• Non-volatile photonic devices
• Ferroelectric silicon photonics

Background:

• Programmable integrated photonics seeks to emulate field-programmable gate arrays optically.
• Conventional systems face limitations due to high power consumption and thermal crosstalk from volatile phase shifters.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce a non-volatile field-programmable photonic gate array.
• Overcome power scaling limitations in optical computing.
• Enable energy-efficient and scalable photonic systems.

Main Methods:

• Implemented a non-volatile photonic gate array on a hybrid silicon-barium titanate platform.
• Utilized ferroelectric domain switching for non-volatile memory, eliminating holding power requirements.
• Designed a hexagonal waveguide mesh with 58 programmable unit cells and 116 actuators.

Main Results:

• Achieved nanosecond-scale switching speeds (80 ns).
• Reduced static power consumption to negligible levels (560 nW per π phase shift).
• Demonstrated diverse signal processing functions, including tunable filtering, 4x4 linear unitary transformations, and optical routing.

Conclusions:

• Established non-volatile ferroelectric silicon photonics as a scalable, heat-free platform.
• Essential for the development of next-generation energy-efficient photonic computing.
• Paves the way for advanced optical circuits without continuous power or bias.