An early instance of optical communication, or the transmission of information using light, can be found in the signs sent from lighthouses to ships at sea. Today’s integrated photonics scholars use optical communications principles to create high-tech, light-powered devices (with integrated photonics platform) like lightning-fast computers.
One-dimensional metalens, tiny surfaces made of nanostructures to control the transmitted or reflected light, and metasurfaces, tiny surfaces made of nanostructures to limit the loss of information, are two components of an integrated photonics platform developed by a research team. Combining photonics can now be achieved by comparing this method to the traditional one.
The team created tiny metalens on a silicon-based chip programmed with many microscopic air slots, allowing parallel optical signal processing on the small chip (integrated photonics platform). Over a 200-nanometer bandwidth, they showed high signal transmission with less than one-decibel loss. They showed the Fourier transformation and differentiation functionalities by layering three metasurfaces together. Fourier transformation and differentiation are required methods in the physical sciences for dissecting functions into their parts.
This work is the first to use low-loss metasurfaces on the integrated photonics platform. The structure is broadband and low loss, essential for optical networks that use little energy. The new gadget created at UD is also significantly lighter and smaller than similar conventional devices.
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