TEKNIK ELEKTRONIKA

Researchers at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) have developed a new technique that utilises vapour-filled optical waveguides on a silicon chip to process data streams encoded by light, so the optical signals can be slowed down and switched on-chip. This avoids the current need to convert optical signals to electrical signals for applications that detect, buffer, multiplex or store photonic information.

In what is claimed to be the world's first demonstration of electromagnetic optical switching on a fully self-contained silicon chip, the technique utilises quantum interference effects in an on-chip hollow-core optical waveguide filled with rubidium vapour. A control laser is used to switch the optical signal on and off and to slow the data stream's speed by a factor of as much as 1,200.

The light from the control laser causes the rubidium atoms to adopt a coherent superposition of two quantum states, which makes the vapour transparent to the optical signal. This allows the channel to be switched on and off. This electromagnetically induce transparency allows optical signals to be both switched and slowed by a quantum effect, potentially enabling the fabrication of quantum communication networks using silicon photonic chips.

According to Holger Schmidt, an electrical engineering professor at UCSC, this technique could potentially be used to produce  fully optical switches, single-photon detectors, quantum memory devices, and other exciting possibilities. The researchers have already successfully used rubidium vapour waveguides to create an atomic spectroscopy device on a single chip, which the group fabricates as a set of 32 devices on a single silicon wafer.

Image: UCSC

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