Category: Waves and modes

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… Read more The new multimode optics - self-configuring circuits and fundamental limits for photonic structures

Understanding and controlling waves – the new multimode optics

“Understanding and controlling waves – the new multimode optics,” Lectures at the Winter College on Optics: Terahertz Optics and Photonics, International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy, February 13, 2023 Talk slides Major references for the talk Waves, modes and communications D. A. B. Miller, “Waves, modes, communications, and optics: a tutorial,” Adv. Opt. Photon.… Read more Understanding and controlling waves – the new multimode optics

Self-configuring photonic circuits and limits in optics

Keynote talk at Photonics West, 2023 – “Self-configuring algorithms, topologies and fundamental limits for photonic circuits and structures” Micro- and nano-fabrication allow new optical systems well beyond previous conventional optics. These possibilities cause us to think of optics quite differently. One approach uses “circuits” with topologies and configuration algorithms. Some such topologies support algorithms allow… Read more Self-configuring photonic circuits and limits in optics

Why optics needs thickness

This Science paper (D. A. B. Miller, “Why optics needs thickness,” Science 379, 41-45 (2023)) shows why and when optical systems need thickness as well as width or area. Understanding this thickness matters as we try to make ever thinner cameras or exploit the emerging possibilities of nanophotonics and flat optics, such as metasurfaces. We… Read more Why optics needs thickness

Self-configuring programmable photonics for processing, communications and sensing tutorial

This tutorial “Self-configuring programmable photonics for processing, communications and sensing,” Invited Tutorial, Optical Fiber Communication Conference OFC 22, San Diego, CA, March 7, 2022, Paper M2G.1 was presented at OFC 22. It gives an introduction to the concepts and applications of self-configuring photonic circuits. See also the following related talks, which are also available with… Read more Self-configuring programmable photonics for processing, communications and sensing tutorial

Coherent self-control of free-space optical beams with integrated silicon photonic meshes

In technologies operating at light wavelengths for wireless communication, sensor networks, positioning, and ranging, a dynamic coherent control and manipulation of light fields is an enabling element for properly generating and correctly receiving free-space optics (FSO) beams even in the presence of unpredictable objects and turbulence in the light path. In this work, we use… Read more Coherent self-control of free-space optical beams with integrated silicon photonic meshes

Degrees of Freedom and Modes in Optics and Electromagnetics

Optics and radio-frequency electromagnetics now both need to work with many distinct channels for communications and sensing. A common framework, based on singular-value decomposition, clarifies the number of degrees of freedom and the true nature of orthogonal communications modes, and resolves many paradoxes. This approach leads to fundamental results in optics and electromagnetics, and maps… Read more Degrees of Freedom and Modes in Optics and Electromagnetics

The New Multimode Optics - Understanding and Exploiting Controllable Complexity

Technologies like silicon photonics allow complex optics. Emerging applications in communications, sensing, and classical and quantum information processing demand complex controllable circuits. Recent advances in novel interferometric mesh architectures, new algorithmic approaches to control, including self-configuring and self-stabilizing circuits, and a clarified modal mathematical approach, promise sophisticated and highly functional circuits beyond previous optics. This… Read more The New Multimode Optics - Understanding and Exploiting Controllable Complexity

How to Count Modes and Deduce Limits in Optics

This invited talk at Metamaterials 2021 discusses how we can use the new kind of “modes”, formally given by the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the coupling operator, to describe optical communications and linear optical devices efficiently and precisely. This approach uniquely gives all the orthogonal channels between input and output spaces. It leads to… Read more How to Count Modes and Deduce Limits in Optics

How light could transform computing

February 10, 2021 This video is a podcast in the Stanford University School of Engineering “The Future of Everything” series, hosted by Russ Altman. In this episode David Miller discusses how light has the potential to transform computing.