Active dielectric antenna on chip for spatial light modulation

作者:Qiu, Ciyuan; Chen, Jianbo; Xia, Yang; Xu, Qianfan*
来源:Scientific Reports, 2012, 2(1): 855.
DOI:10.1038/srep00855

摘要

Integrated photonic resonators are widely used to manipulate light propagation in an evanescently-coupled waveguide. While the evanescent coupling scheme works well for planar optical systems that are naturally waveguide based, many optical applications are free-space based, such as imaging, display, holographics, metrology and remote sensing. Here we demonstrate an active dielectric antenna as the interface device that allows the large-scale integration capability of silicon photonics to serve the free-space applications. We show a novel perturbation-base diffractive coupling scheme that allows a high-Q planer resonator to directly interact with and manipulate free-space waves. Using a silicon-based photonic crystal cavity whose resonance can be rapidly tuned with a p-i-n junction, a compact spatial light modulator with an extinction ratio of 9.5 dB and a modulation speed of 150 MHz is demonstrated. Method to improve the modulation speed is discussed.

  • 出版日期2012-11-14