Ultracompact on-chip silicon optical logic gates

Chen Wang; Zhi-Yuan Li

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arXiv · 1210.6092

Ultracompact on-chip silicon optical logic gates

Chen Wang·Zhi-Yuan Li

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Abstract

All-optical integrated circuits for computing and information processing have been pursued for decades as a potential strategy to overcome the speed limitations intrinsic to electronics. However feasible on-chip integrated logic units and devices still have been limited by its size, quality, scalability, and reliability. Here we demonstrate all-passive on-chip optical AND and NAND logic gates made from a directional emitting cavity connecting two ultrasmall photonic crystal heterojunction diodes. The measured transmission spectra show more than 10dB contrast of the logic transport with a high phase tolerance, agreeing well with numerical simulations. The building of linear, passive, and ultracompact silicon optical logic gates might pave the way to construct novel nanophotonic on-chip processor architectures for future optical computing technologies.

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Chen Wang, Zhi-Yuan Li. 2012-10-23. Ultracompact on-chip silicon optical logic gates. https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.6092

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