Ion implantation into silicon results in a large refractive index change, which in turn can be tuned via thermal treatment to manipulate optical devices. In particular, devices such as Mach-Zehnder interferometers, directional couplers and ring resonators can be tuned, either to improve their performance, or as building blocks to “programme” them into a specific operating configuration. In contrast to several other programmable circuit techniques, this approach is non-volatile and therefore requires no additional power source to maintain the operating configuration once programmed. In paper the team discuss this approach to “programmable” or “configurable” photonic circuits in silicon photonics platforms.
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