Multilevel reconfigurable nanophotonics with low-loss phase-change materials

Phase change materials (PCMs) are currently revolutionizing nanophotonics by providing ways to tune and reconfigure optical functionalities without any moving parts. Building on this phenomenon, the last decade has witnessed many exciting reports of novel devices exploiting PCMs such as for example beam-steering, tunable light emission, reflection and absorption, programmable metasurfaces and reconfigurable neural networks.

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Photon Design is exhibitor of the 2024 ECIO edition

Photon Design was started in 1992 and now provides a wide range of innovative photonics CAD tools to 35+ countries around the world, supplying most of the World’s leading photonics companies, Universities and government research labs. CAD products include tools for both passive and active (semiconductor) component and optical circuit modelling.

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Integration Technologies for High-Speed Neuromorphic Photonics

The impact of the photonic integration platform of choice on the performance of a novel hybrid optoelectronic neuron based on time division multiplexing that we recently proposed is analyzed and discussed. An invited speaker presentation by Giampiero Contestabile, Associate Professor at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies.

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Plasmonics for Integrated Optics

Plasmonics offers a novel approach to overcome the speed limitations of photonics. More importantly plasmonics is a high-speed solution providing lowest power operation on the smallest footprint with a path for CMOS compatible fabrication. In this plenary talk, after an introduction we will discuss latest results on novel modulators, detectors or THz sensors. We will then discuss challenges ahead as well as opportunities of this new field.

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MEMS-based integrated photonic elements for ultra-low-power programmability

Programmability and reconfigurability provide exciting opportunities for integrated optics. In particular, the use of microelectromechanical tunable elements in silicon-based integrated photonics offers interesting options for scalable programmable photonics. In this invited talk, we will discuss our recent progress in developing compact, low-power, reconfigurable MEMS-based building blocks, namely tunable directional couplers and phase shifters, for a number of applications in photonic signal processing, computing, and communication.

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Programmable Integrated Photonics with Phase-Change Materials

Phase-change materials (PCMs) have emerged as a promising platform to modulate light in a nonvolatile manner—a reversible switching between their stable amorphous and crystalline states leads to an impressive refractive index contrast (∆n, ∆k ~1−3). The last decade has seen a growing interest in such a combination of properties for a variety of nonvolatile programmable devices, such as metasurfaces, tunable filters, phase/amplitude modulators, color pixels, thermal camouflage, photonic memories/computing, plasmonics, etc.

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Quantum Key Distribution with Integrated Photonics

Quantum computing’s rapid advancement threatens current cryptography, which relies on complex problems solvable by quantum computers. This necessitates the development of “quantum-safe” technologies for future network protection. Today’s data is also at risk from “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks, where encrypted messages are stored for decryption once quantum processors are available. This is especially concerning for long-term valuable information like financial records and medical data.

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