Metamaterial engineered waveguide devices and their key role in silicon photonics
Since the early demonstrations of a silicon wire waveguide with a metamaterial core [1,2], subwavelength grating (SWG) metamaterial engineered waveguides have been explored extensively for controlling light propagation in planar waveguide circuits [3-5]. The integration of metamaterials on silicon chip allowed creation of optical waveguides with unprecedented control of refractive index, modal confinement, birefringence, anisotropy, polarization and modal dispersions, and nonlinear properties. It also enabled highly efficient and robust coupling between photonic chips and external devices with efficiency approaching 100%. Metamaterial engineering has been adopted by silicon photonics industry and is now an integral design tool in integrated photonics with new applications advancing rapidly, including optical communications and interconnects, biomedical, quantum and sensing technologies. Here we present an overview of recent advances in this surging field and discuss how optical metamaterials enhance the performance of the integrated photonic devices, including their key role in silicon photonics.
[1] P. Cheben et al., Subwavelength waveguide grating for mode conversion and light coupling in integrated optics, Opt. Express 14, 4695 (2006).
[2] P. Cheben et al., Refractive index engineering with subwavelength gratings for efficient microphotonic couplers and planar waveguide multiplexers, Opt. Lett. 35, 2526 (2010).
[3] P. Cheben, R. Halir, J. H. Schmid, H.A. Atwater and D.R. Smith, Subwavelength integrated photonics, Nature 560, 565 (2018).
[4] R. Halir et al., Subwavelength-grating metamaterial structures for silicon photonic devices, doi: 10.1109/jproc.2018.2851614, Proc. IEEE (2018).
[5] J. Manuel Luque-González et al., A review of silicon subwavelength gratings: building break-through devices with anisotropic metamaterials, https://doi.org/10.1515/nanoph-2021-0110, Nanophotonics (2021).
Dr. Pavel Cheben is a Principal Research Officer at the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada. He is also an Honorary Professor at University of Malaga and an Adjunct Professor at University of Ottawa, University of Toronto, Carleton University, McMaster University and University of Zilina. Dr. Cheben is best known for his work in subwavelength metamaterial silicon photonics. He introduced a new area of research that brings together metamaterial technology and integrated photonics. He has co-authored more than 650 papers and book chapters, 38 patent applications and over 270 invited presentations. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, the European Optical Society, the Institute of Physics, the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), the Engineering Institute of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He is the most published scientist of the NRC Canada for the past decade.
