arXiv subjects

Andreas Boes

Publications and source records attributed to Andreas Boes.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Stimulated Brillouin Scattering in InGaP-on-Insulator Waveguides

Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) is a nonlinear interaction between optical and acoustic waves in solids. First regarded as a parasitic process in optical fibers, it has gathered significant interest in microwave photonic applications such as optical signal processing and narrow linewidth lasers. While many Brillouin system demonstrations have been done on photonic chips, they struggle to provide simultaneous high Brillouin gain and narrow linewidth in a scalable platform, capable of integration with established photonic integrated circuits. Here, we present a novel integrated InGaP-on-SiO$_2$ platform, where a single crystalline InGaP waveguide layer offers superior material properties and strong nonlinearities to support SBS near 1550 nm wavelength. We demonstrate backward SBS with a measured high Brillouin gain coefficient of $588\, \mathrm{W}^{-1}\,\mathrm{m}^{-1}$ and a record narrow linewidth of 5.2 MHz at 9.346 GHz frequency shift. This work establishes a wafer-scale complementary metal-oxide semiconductor compatible fabrication process, paving a scalable path for high gain and narrow linewidth Brillouin photonics with applications such as precision signal processing.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2025

Sensing with Twisted Light: Precision Measurement of Fractional Azimuthal Index to Determine Refractive Index

Light beams possessing orbital angular momentum (OAM) have gained significant interest in areas such as optical manipulation, quantum entanglement, and super-resolved imaging. In itself, the OAM for a Laguerre-Gaussian beam is proportional to the azimuthal index of the light field, $l$. It is in fact continuous in nature and a non-trivial parameter to measure. The ability to determine $l$ precisely would broaden the use of such beams for new applications. In this study, we generate Laguerre-Gaussian beams of differing $l$ through mode conversion using microscopic spiral phase plates (SPPs). The exact value of $l$ imparted for a given incident wavelength is dependant upon the refractive index of the media within which the SPP is immersed. Here, we show an ultra-precise approach based on laser speckle to measure the azimuthal index of these generated beams to a precision of $2\,{\times}\,10^{-5}$. This is an improvement of three orders of magnitude over previous studies. In turn, this leverages an ultra-precise measurement of the refractive index of the medium surrounding the SPP, with a best measured precision of $6.4\,{\times}\,10^{-7}$\,refractive index units. This is confirmed to be at the shot-noise limit of the system. Our study interrogates samples of sucrose and haemoglobin, only 300\,pL in volume, within a microfluidic channel. This demonstration of an original form of microfluidic refractive index sensor, based on mode conversion to light fields with OAM, may be multiplexed to measure spatio-temporal variations and gradients within biological samples.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2025

Suspended Z-cut lithium niobate waveguides for stimulated Brillouin scattering

On-chip stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) has recently been demonstrated in thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN), an emerging material platform for integrated photonics offering large electro-optic and nonlinear properties. While previous work on SBS in TFLN have focused on surface SBS, in this contribution we experimentally demonstrate, for the first time, backward intra-modal SBS generation in suspended Z-cut TFLN waveguides. Our results show trapping of multiple acoustic modes in this structure, featuring a multi-peak Brillouin gain spectrum due to the excitation of higher-order acoustic modes. The findings expand the TFLN waveguide platform exploration for SBS interactions and provide a crucial step towards realizing optical processors for microwave signals or sensors integrated on TFLN.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

One Million Quality Factor Integrated Ring Resonators in the Mid-Infrared

We report ring resonators on a silicon germanium on silicon platform operating in the mid-infrared wavelength range around 3.5 - 4.6 {\mu}m with quality factors reaching up to one million. Advances in fabrication technology enable us to demonstrate such high Q-factors, which put silicon germanium at the forefront of mid-infrared integrated photonic platforms. The achievement of high Q is attested by the observation of degeneracy lifting between clockwise (CW) and counter-clockwise (CCW) resonances, as well as optical bistability due to an efficient power buildup in the rings.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Ultra-wideband integrated microwave photonic multi-parameter measurement system on thin-film lithium niobate

Research on microwave signal measurement techniques is risen, driven by the expanding urgent demands of wireless communication, global positioning systems, remote sensing and 6G networks. In stark contrast with traditional electronic-based realization, the implementations of microwave signal measurement systems based on integrated compact photonic chip have exhibited distinct advantages in high operation bandwidth, light weight, and strong immunity to electromagnetic interference. However, although numerous integrated microwave photonic signal measurement systems have been reported, measurement bandwidth of the majority of them is still below 30 GHz due to the bandwidth limitation of electro-optical modulators (EOMs). Furthermore, previous studies often are more focused on the measurement of one single parameter (typically the frequency) of microwave signals, which has hindered their practical application in complex situations. Here, an integrated photonic microwave multi-parameter measurement system composed of microwave frequency measurement module and microwave phase amplitude measurement module based on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) platform is reported. Utilizing this system, not only the ultra-high bandwidth (up to 60GHz) of microwave frequency, phase and amplitude measurement with low root-mean-squares errors (450MHz, 3.43{\deg} and 1.64% of the measurement for frequency, phase and amplitude, respectively), but also the time-domain reconstruction of sinusoidal microwave signals is achieved. This demonstration further broadens the application of integrated TFLN photonic devices in microwave signal measurement technology to address the bandwidth bottleneck of the ever-growing microwave networks in the future information society.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Photonic real time video image signal processor at 17Tb/s based on a Kerr microcomb

Signal processing has become central to many fields, from coherent optical telecommunications, where it is used to compensate signal impairments, to video image processing. Image processing is particularly important for observational astronomy, medical diagnosis, autonomous driving, big data and artificial intelligence. For these applications, signal processing traditionally has mainly been performed electronically. However these, as well as new applications, particularly those involving real time video image processing, are creating unprecedented demand for ultrahigh performance, including high bandwidth and reduced energy consumption. Here, we demonstrate a photonic signal processor operating at 17 Terabits/s and use it to process video image signals in real-time. The system processes 400,000 video signals concurrently, performing 34 functions simultaneously that are key to object edge detection, edge enhancement and motion blur. As compared with spatial-light devices used for image processing, our system is not only ultra-high speed but highly reconfigurable and programable, able to perform many different functions without any change to the physical hardware. Our approach is based on an integrated Kerr soliton crystal microcomb, and opens up new avenues for ultrafast robotic vision and machine learning.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Hitless memory-reconfigurable photonic reservoir computing architecture

Reservoir computing is an analog bio-inspired computation model for efficiently processing time-dependent signals, the photonic implementations of which promise a combination of massive parallel information processing, low power consumption, and high speed operation. However, most implementations, especially for the case of time-delay reservoir computing (TDRC), require signal attenuation in the reservoir to achieve the desired system dynamics for a specific task, often resulting in large amounts of power being coupled outside of the system. We propose a novel TDRC architecture based on an asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) integrated in a resonant cavity which allows the memory capacity of the system to be tuned without the need for an optical attenuator block. Furthermore, this can be leveraged to find the optimal value for the specific components of the total memory capacity metric. We demonstrate this approach on the temporal bitwise XOR task and conclude that this way of memory capacity reconfiguration allows optimal performance to be achieved for memory-specific tasks.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2022

Spatio-temporal isolator in lithium niobate on insulator

In this contribution, we simulate, design, and experimentally demonstrate an integrated optical isolator based on spatiotemporal modulation in the thin-film lithium niobate on insulator waveguide platform. We used two cascaded travelling wave phase modulators for spatiotemporal modulation and a ring resonator as a wavelength filter to suppress the sidebands of the reverse propagating light. This enabled us to achieve an isolation of 27 dB. The demonstrated suppression of the reverse propagating light makes such isolators suitable for the integration with III-V laser diodes and Erbium doped gain sections in the thin-film lithium niobate on insulator waveguide platform.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Correlated twin-photon generation in a silicon nitrite loaded thin film PPLN waveguide

Photon-pair sources based on thin film lithium niobate on insulator technology have a great potential for integrated optical quantum information processing. We report on such a source of correlated twin-photon pairs generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion in a silicon nitride (SiN) rib loaded thin film periodically poled lithium niobate (LN) waveguide. The generated photon pairs have a wavelength centred at 1560\,nm compatible with present telecom infrastructure, a large bandwidth (21\,THz) and a brightness of $\sim 2.5\times 10^5$\,pairs/s/mW/GHz. The photons are correlated and exhibit a cross correlation $g^{(2)}(0)$ of about 8000. Using the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect, we have also shown heralded single photon emission, achieving an autocorrelation $g^{(2)}_H(0) \simeq 0.04$.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Phase retrieval of programmable photonic integrated circuits based on an on-chip fractional-delay reference path

Programmable photonic integrated circuits (PICs), offering diverse signal processing functions within a single chip, are promising solutions for applications ranging from optical communications to artificial intelligence. While the scale and complexity of programmable PICs is increasing, the characterization, and thus calibration, of them becomes increasingly challenging. Here we demonstrate a phase retrieval method for programmable PICs using an on-chip fractional-delay reference path. The impulse response of the chip can be uniquely and precisely identified from only the insertion loss using a standard complex Fourier transform. We demonstrate our approach experimentally with a 4-tap finite-impulse-response chip. The results match well with expectations and verifies our approach as effective for individually determining the taps' weights without the need for additional ports and photodiodes.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Recirculating Light Phase Modulator

High efficiency and a compact footprint are desired properties for electro-optic modulators. In this paper, we propose, theoretically investigate and experimentally demonstrate a recirculating phase modulator, which increases the modulation efficiency by modulating the optical field several times in a non-resonant waveguide structure. The 'recycling' of light is achieved by looping the optical path that exits the phase modulator back and coupling it to a higher order waveguide mode, which then repeats its passage through the phase modulator. By looping the light back twice, we were able to demonstrate a recirculating phase modulator that requires nine times lower power to generate the same modulation index of a single pass phase modulator. This approach of modulation efficiency enhancement is promising for the design of advanced tunable electro optical frequency comb generators and other electro-optical devices with defined operational frequency bandwidths.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Phase-encoded RF signal generation based on an integrated 49GHz micro-comb optical source

We demonstrate photonic RF phase encoding based on an integrated micro-comb source. By assembling single-cycle Gaussian pulse replicas using a transversal filtering structure, phase encoded waveforms can be generated by programming the weights of the wavelength channels. This approach eliminates the need for RF signal generators for RF carrier generation or arbitrary waveform generators for phase encoded signal generation. A large number of wavelengths of up to 60 were provided by the microcomb source, yielding a high pulse compression ratio of 30. Reconfigurable phase encoding rates ranging from 2 to 6 Gb/s were achieved by adjusting the length of each phase code. This work demonstrates the significant potentials of this microcomb-based approach to achieve high-speed RF photonic phase encoding with low cost and footprint.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2022

Picosecond Pulsed Squeezing in Thin-Film Lithium Niobate Strip-Loaded Waveguides at Telecommunication Wavelengths

Achieving high level of pulsed squeezing, in a platform which offers integration and stability, is a key requirement for continuous-variable quantum information processing. Typically highly squeezed states are achieved with narrow band optical cavities and bulk crystals, limiting scalability. Using single-pass parametric down conversion in an integrated optical device, we demonstrate quadrature squeezing of picosecond pulses in a thin-film lithium niobate strip-loaded waveguide. For on-chip peak powers of less than 0.3 W, we measure up to -0.33$\pm$0.07 dB of squeezing with an inferred on-chip value of -1.7$\pm$0.4 dB. This work highlights the potential of the strip-loaded waveguide platform for broadband squeezing applications and the development of photonic quantum technologies.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Frequency comb distillation for optical superchannel transmission

Optical frequency combs can potentially provide an efficient light source for multi-terabit-per-second optical superchannels. However, as the bandwidth of these multi-wavelength light sources is increased, it can result in low per-line power. Optical amplifiers can be used to overcome power limitations, but the accompanying spontaneous optical noise can degrade performance in optical systems. To overcome this, we demonstrate wideband noise reduction for comb lines using a high-Q microring resonator whose resonances align with the comb lines, providing tight optical filtering of multiple combs lines at the same time. By distilling an optical frequency comb in this way, we are able to reduce the required comb line OSNR when these lines are used in a coherent optical communications system. Through performance tests on a 19.45-GHz-spaced comb generating 71 lines, using 18 Gbaud, 64-QAM sub-channels at a spectral efficiency of 10.6 b/s/Hz, we find that noise-corrupted comb lines can reduce the optical signal-to-noise ratio required for the comb by ~ 9 dB when used as optical carriers at the transmitter side, and by ~ 12 dB when used as a local oscillator at the receiver side. This demonstration provides a method to enable low power optical frequency combs to be able to support high bandwidth and high-capacity communications.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2020

11 TeraFLOPs per second photonic convolutional accelerator for deep learning optical neural networks

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs), inspired by biological visual cortex systems, are a powerful category of artificial neural networks that can extract the hierarchical features of raw data to greatly reduce the network parametric complexity and enhance the predicting accuracy. They are of significant interest for machine learning tasks such as computer vision, speech recognition, playing board games and medical diagnosis. Optical neural networks offer the promise of dramatically accelerating computing speed to overcome the inherent bandwidth bottleneck of electronics. Here, we demonstrate a universal optical vector convolutional accelerator operating beyond 10 TeraFLOPS (floating point operations per second), generating convolutions of images of 250,000 pixels with 8 bit resolution for 10 kernels simultaneously, enough for facial image recognition. We then use the same hardware to sequentially form a deep optical CNN with ten output neurons, achieving successful recognition of full 10 digits with 900 pixel handwritten digit images with 88% accuracy. Our results are based on simultaneously interleaving temporal, wavelength and spatial dimensions enabled by an integrated microcomb source. This approach is scalable and trainable to much more complex networks for demanding applications such as unmanned vehicle and real-time video recognition.

cs.NE↗

arXiv2020

Arbitrary waveform generator for microwave and radio frequencies based on photonics with an integrated 49GHz Kerr micro-comb

We report a photonic-based radio frequency (RF) arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) using a soliton crystal micro-comb source with a free spectral range (FSR) of 48.9 GHz. The comb source provides over 80 wavelengths, or channels, that we use to successfully achieve arbitrary waveform shapes including square waveforms with a tunable duty ratio ranging from 10% to 90%, sawtooth waveforms with a tunable slope ratio of 0.2 to 1, and a symmetric concave quadratic chirp waveform with an instantaneous frequency of sub GHz. We achieve good agreement between theory and experiment, validating the effectiveness of this approach towards realizing high-performance, broad bandwidth, nearly user-defined RF waveform generation.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2020

Photonic RF channelizer based on a 90 wavelength optical soliton crystal 49GHz Kerr microcomb

We report a broadband radio frequency (RF) channelizer with up to 92 channels using a coherent microcomb source. A soliton crystal microcomb, generated by a 49 GHz micro-ring resonator (MRR), is used as a multi-wavelength source. Due to its ultra-low comb spacing, up to 92 wavelengths are available in the C band, yielding a broad operation bandwidth. Another high-Q MRR is employed as a passive optical periodic filter to slice the RF spectrum with a high resolution of 121.4 MHz. We experimentally achieve an instantaneous RF operation bandwidth of 8.08 GHz and verify RF channelization up to 17.55 GHz via thermal tuning. Our approach is a significant step towards the monolithically integrated photonic RF receivers with reduced complexity, size, and unprecedented performance, which is important for wide RF applications ranging from broadband analog signal processing to digital-compatible signal detection.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2020

Photonic radio frequency and microwave integration based on a multi-wavelength 49GHz Kerr microcomb source

We demonstrate a photonic RF integrator based on an integrated soliton crystal microcomb source. By multicasting and progressively delaying the input RF signal using a transversal structure, the input RF signal is integrated discretely. Up to 81 wavelengths are provided by the microcomb source, which enable a large integration time window of 6.8 ns, together with a time resolution as fast as 84 ps. We perform signal integration of a diverse range of input RF signals including Gaussian pulses with varying time widths, dual pulses with varying time intervals and a square waveform. The experimental results show good agreement with theory. These results verify our microcomb-based integrator as a competitive approach for RF signal integration with high performance and potentially lower cost and footprint.

physics.app-ph↗