IMEC, Department of Information Technology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Center of Nano- and Biophotonics, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Nature. 2020 Oct;586(7828):207-216. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2764-0. Epub 2020 Oct 7.
The growing maturity of integrated photonic technology makes it possible to build increasingly large and complex photonic circuits on the surface of a chip. Today, most of these circuits are designed for a specific application, but the increase in complexity has introduced a generation of photonic circuits that can be programmed using software for a wide variety of functions through a mesh of on-chip waveguides, tunable beam couplers and optical phase shifters. Here we discuss the state of this emerging technology, including recent developments in photonic building blocks and circuit architectures, as well as electronic control and programming strategies. We cover possible applications in linear matrix operations, quantum information processing and microwave photonics, and examine how these generic chips can accelerate the development of future photonic circuits by providing a higher-level platform for prototyping novel optical functionalities without the need for custom chip fabrication.
集成光子技术的日益成熟使得在芯片表面构建越来越大、越来越复杂的光子电路成为可能。如今，这些电路大多是针对特定应用设计的，但复杂性的增加带来了新一代的光子电路，这些电路可以通过芯片上的波导网格、可调谐光束耦合器和光学相移器使用软件进行编程，以实现各种功能。在这里，我们讨论了这一新兴技术的现状，包括光子模块和电路架构的最新发展，以及电子控制和编程策略。我们涵盖了在线性矩阵运算、量子信息处理和微波光子学中的可能应用，并研究了这些通用芯片如何通过为原型设计新的光学功能提供更高层次的平台，而无需定制芯片制造，从而加速未来光子电路的发展。
