Harvard Team Unveils Breakthrough in High-Speed Optical Signal Processing
A team led by Xudong Li at Harvard University has made significant strides in optical signal processing using Thin-Film Lithium Niobate (TFLN). Their work, published recently, details a novel system that enables high-speed optical communications and advanced signal processing.
The team, including Yaowen Hu, Tong Ge, Andrea Cordaro, Yunxiang Song, and Xinrui Zhu, has developed a system that overcomes limitations of existing on-chip technologies. It achieves this by creating a loop for repeated processing of light signals within a small space. This recursive electro-optical circuit allows for complex operations such as frequency shifting, delay manipulation, and differentiation of optical packets in time.
The system can perform reconfigurable differentiation of optical packets up to the fifth order using an asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer. It achieves a frequency shift of up to 420GHz using only a 3GHz sinusoidal microwave signal and large group delays of 28ps/nm over a 30nm optical bandwidth. Currently, the system allows for approximately 14 roundtrips of optical packets, with potential for improvement to 500 roundtrips and the addition of gain.
TFLN, emerging as a powerful platform for integrated photonics, offers advantages over traditional silicon-based systems in high-speed modulation and complex signal processing. The team's work establishes a powerful and scalable platform for multifunctional photonic processing, with future work including extending the recursive approach to other functionalities and exploring applications in measurement-based quantum computation.
The team's innovative use of TFLN for spectral-temporal optical processing has opened up new possibilities in high-speed optical communications and advanced signal processing. Their work, published in leading journals, demonstrates the potential of this technology for various applications, including quantum technologies and microwave photonics.
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