The new multimode optics – self-configuring circuits and fundamental limits for photonic structures

Tutorial talk at ePIXfab 8 workshop, Gent, July 6, 2023

Silicon photonics allows circuits with large numbers of elements that offer many new capabilities, but we need reasonable ways to design and control such complex interferometric circuits. Fortunately, some very convenient architectures, mathematics and algorithms allow simple control, including even self-configuring circuits that can adapt in real time to solve problems. Such complex optics is, however, quite unlike the previous optics of lenses, mirrors and prisms, so we also need new ways to think about such optics, physically and mathematically. Fortunately, too, there is a very powerful new “modal” approach for these and other complex optical systems. This mathematically straightforward approach is also physically quite directly meaningful, and even leads to new fundamental physical laws and limits in optics.

Talk reference

D. A. B. Miller, “The new multimode optics – self-configuring circuits and fundamental limits for photonic structures,” Tutorial talk at ePIXfab 8 workshop, Gent, July 6, 2023

Major references for the talk

D. A. B. Miller, “Waves, modes, communications, and optics: a tutorial,” Adv. Opt. Photon. 11, 679-825 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1364/AOP.11.000679

W. Bogaerts, D. Pérez, J. Capmany, D. A. B. Miller, J. Poon, D. Englund, F. Morichetti and A. Melloni “Programmable photonic circuits,” Nature 586, 207–216 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2764-0 Open access link https://rdcu.be/b8caY

D. A. B. Miller, “Why optics needs thickness,” Science 379, 41-45 (2023) Open access link to Science paper https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade3395 Author’s final version (with Supplementary Materials)