arXiv subjects

Zengqi Chen

Publications and source records attributed to Zengqi Chen.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Programmable generation of optical skyrmions on a silicon photonic chip

Optical skyrmions, characterized by topologically stable and spatially varying polarization textures, show immense potential for robust optical communications and metrology. However, conventional methods for generating optical Stokes skyrmions rely on bulky free-space optics, strictly constraining both system miniaturization and dynamic reconfigurability. Here, we demonstrate the efficient and programmable generation of optical skyrmions and bimerons using a compact silicon photonic chip. By integrating a programmable Mach--Zehnder interferometer mesh with a multi-dimensional grating emitter, we dynamically control the amplitudes, phases, and polarizations of emitted fundamental and orbital angular momentum modes. This architecture allows on-demand electrical switching among a complete library of optical quasi-particle states, including N\'eel, Bloch, intermediate, and anti-type skyrmions and bimerons. Experimental full-Stokes polarimetry confirms high-fidelity polarization textures with near-unity skyrmion numbers. Our foundry-compatible platform translates complex topological light generation into simple voltage controls, paving the way for next-generation communication and sensing systems based on optical skyrmions.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Towards Terabit/$\lambda$/s Multidimensional Silicon Photonic Engine

Increasing artificial intelligence (AI) workloads drive co-packaged optics (CPO), which integrates optical engines with electronic components. Optical interconnects can extend transmission distances and reduce latency, allowing distributed clusters in AI factories to operate as a unified computational unit. However, escalating data throughput necessitates greater parallelization of light within ultracompact form factors while maintaining stringent energy efficiency and latency constraints. Here, we present a multidimensional silicon photonic engine that achieves a communication capacity exceeding 1.8 terabit/s/lambda/s. By monolithically integrating transceivers, spatial and polarization (de)multiplexers, and optical signal processors on a single chip, we eliminate bulky discrete (de)multiplexers and power-hungry digital signal processing (DSP). In experiments, the photonic engine can be self-configured to identify two, four, or six concurrent spatial and polarization channels per fiber while mitigating dynamic channel crosstalk. Compared with the state-of-art DSP, our approach achieves >5,000-fold reductions in both power consumption and processing latency at a MIMO processing order of six. Furthermore, we demonstrate full-duplex, modulation-format-transparent inter-chip communication over 300-meter fiber. These results represent a paradigm shift for optical engines in future high-performance computing and AI-driven data centers.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Self-Configuring Universal Multichannel and Multidimensional Integrated Photonic Processing Engine

Arbitrary manipulation of light across multiple physical dimensions is essential for harnessing its parallelism in fundamental research and advanced applications, such as optical interconnects, computing, imaging, sensing, and quantum networks. However, creating a universal device capable of arbitrary operations of multidimensional optical beams has been challenging, primarily due to their complex mutual interferences and dynamic transmission characteristics. In this study, we experimentally demonstrate a self-configuring integrated photonic processor designed for the arbitrary manipulations of multiple optical waves over their spatial and polarization dimensions. Despite the random nature of the input speckle, the photonic processor relies on an optical singular-value decomposition engine to sort all orthogonal input beams and implement arbitrary processing over both spatial and polarization dimensions precisely. Notably, the photonic processor can be self programmed in situ, enabling versatile functionalities such as beam shaping, optical switching, and reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexing. Our findings advance the manipulation of multidimensional optical beams through a scalable, CMOS-compatible integration approach, paving the way for fully exploiting the parallelism of light in various applications.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2025

Single-Shot Integrated Speckle Spectrometer with Ultrahigh Bandwidth-to-Resolution

Miniaturized spectrometers employing chip solutions are essential for a wide range of applications, such as wearable health monitoring, biochemical sensing, and portable optical coherence tomography. However, the development of integrated spectrometers is hampered by the inherent trade-off between bandwidth-to-resolution, footprint, sampling channels, and operation speed. Here, we demonstrate that an ultrahigh bandwidth-to-resolution reconstructive spectrometer can be easily implemented through a single image capture of the speckle pattern diffracted from a passive silicon photonic chip. By leveraging the high pixel count of an image sensor, we can instantly acquire a significant number of distinct spatial sampling channels. Those sampling channels are spatially decorrelated by using our passive optical network on chip including cascaded unbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometers, random diffraction by an antenna array, and mutual interference in free space before being captured. Hence, each speckle pattern contains wavelength-specific information across its spatial distribution to enhance the effectiveness of the global sampling strategy. Experimentally, we achieve a spectral resolution of 10 pm and an operational bandwidth of 200 nm, with sampling channels up to 2730. Multiple unknown narrowband and broadband spectra can also be precisely obtained.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Efficient and Adaptive Reconfiguration of Light Structure in Optical Fibers with Programmable Silicon Photonics

The demand for structured light with a reconfigurable spatial and polarization distribution has been increasing across a wide range of fundamental and advanced photonics applications, including microscopy, imaging, sensing, communications, and quantum information processing. Nevertheless, the unique challenge in manipulating light structure after optical fiber transmission is the necessity to dynamically address the inherent unknown fiber transmission matrix, which can be affected by factors like variations in the fiber stress and inter-modal coupling. In this study, we demonstrated that the beam structure at the fiber end including its spatial and polarization distribution can be precisely and adaptively reconfigured by a programmable silicon photonic processor, without prior knowledge of the optical fiber systems and their changes in the transmission matrices. Our demonstrated photonic chip can generate and control the full set of spatial and polarization modes or their superposition in a two-mode few-mode optical fiber. High-quality beam structures can be obtained in experiments. In addition, efficient generation is achieved by our proposed chip-to-fiber emitter while using a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor compatible fabrication technology. Our findings present a scalable pathway towards achieving a portable and reliable system capable of achieving precise control, efficient emission, and adaptive reconfiguration for structured light in optical fibers.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Empowering high-dimensional optical fiber communications with integrated photonic processors

Mode division multiplexing (MDM) in optical fibers enables multichannel capabilities for various applications, including data transmission, quantum networks, imaging, and sensing. However, MDM optical fiber systems, usually necessities bulk-optics approaches for launching different orthogonal fiber modes into the multimode optical fiber, and multiple-input multiple-output digital electronic signal processing at the receiver side to undo the arbitrary mode scrambling in a circular-core optical fiber. Here we show that a high-dimensional optical fiber communication system can be entirely implemented by a reconfigurable integrated photonic processor, featuring kernels of multichannel mode multiplexing transmitter and all-optical descrambling receiver. High-speed and inter-chip communications involving six spatial- and polarization modes have been experimentally demonstrated with high efficiency and high-quality eye diagrams, despite the presence of random mode scrambling and polarization rotation in a circular-core few-mode fiber. The proposed photonic integration approach holds promising prospects for future space-division multiplexing applications.

physics.optics↗