A photonic integrated circuit includes a slot optical waveguide having an optical core with sub-wavelength slot therein that is partially filled with a first lower-index material having a negative thermo-optic coefficient. The slot may also include a second lower-index material having a positive thermo-optic coefficient. The relative volume of the first lower-index material within the slot may be configured to provide athermal or nearly-athermal operation. Example applications include integrated AWG MUX/DEMUX devices, Mach-Zehnder modulators, and micro-ring resonators or modulators implemented with silicon-based or silicon-nitride based slot waveguides with reduced sensitivity to temperature changes.

There is described an optical phase modulator generally having a substrate; a waveguide mounted to the substrate and extending along a path of the substrate, the waveguide having a first series of phase shift units distributed along the waveguide, each phase shift unit having two Bragg gratings being spaced apart from one another along the path and a cavity between the two spaced-apart Bragg gratings; and a modulation circuit configured for driving a length of the series of phase shift units of the waveguide in accordance with a modulation signal thereby modulating a refractive index of the waveguide to induce a phase shift to an optical signal propagating along the waveguide.

An interferometer comprises a plurality of waveguide branches comprising a plurality of bus waveguides and a plurality of photonic resonators. A first waveguide branch of the plurality of waveguide branches comprises a first photonic resonator coupled to a first bus waveguide. The first photonic resonator is disposed to couple and circle a first portion of an optical beam at the first photonic resonator to generate a first phase shift of the first portion of the optical beam, where the first phase shift is the same as a second phase shift of a second photonic resonator coupled to a second bus waveguide.

Photonic devices are disclosed including a first cladding layer, a first electrical contact comprising a first lead coupled to a first dielectric portion, a second electrical contact comprising a second lead coupled to a second dielectric portion, a waveguide structure comprising a slab layer comprising a first material, and a second cladding layer. The slab layer may be coupled to the first dielectric portion of the first electrical contact and the second dielectric portion of the second electrical contact. The first dielectric portion and the second dielectric portion may have a dielectric constant greater than a dielectric constant of the first material.

Photonic devices are disclosed including a first cladding layer, a first electrical contact comprising a first lead coupled to a first dielectric portion, a second electrical contact comprising a second lead coupled to a second dielectric portion, a waveguide structure comprising a slab layer comprising a first material, and a second cladding layer. The slab layer may be coupled to the first dielectric portion of the first electrical contact and the second dielectric portion of the second electrical contact. The first dielectric portion and the second dielectric portion may have a dielectric constant greater than a dielectric constant of the first material.

Methods and devices that provide a variable-bandwidth optical filter with frequency tuning are disclosed. A universal variable bandwidth optical filter architecture is disclosed, based on microring resonators that can vary both operation wavelength and bandwidth with no extra complexity relative to conventional wavelength tunable filters. The filter architecture provides a universal filter design for any arbitrary shape of filter response, such as second-order, fourth-order, sixth-order, and so on. The filter characteristics—insertion loss, in-band ripple, and out-of-band rejection level—may be maintained over the bandwidth tuning range. There is no need for extra heaters to tune the filter's operating bandwidth, as the same heaters used to tune the filter frequency can be used to tune filter bandwidth. The device can be used as an add/drop filter.

The present invention relates to a photonic chip realized by combining at least one Programmable Photonics Analog Block (PPAB) and at least one Reconfigurable Photonic Interconnection (RPI) implemented over a photonic chip that is capable of implementing one or various simultaneous photonics circuits and/or linear multipart transformations by the appropriate programming of its resources (i.e. PPABs and RPIs) and the selection of its input and output ports. The invention also relates to a field-programmable photonic array (FPPA) comprising at least a programmable circuit based on tunable beamsplitters with independent coupling and phase-sifting configuration and peripheral high-performance building blocks.

Photonic devices are disclosed including a first cladding layer, a first electrical contact comprising a first lead coupled to a first dielectric portion, a second electrical contact comprising a second lead coupled to a second dielectric portion, a waveguide structure comprising a slab layer comprising a first material, and a second cladding layer. The slab layer may be coupled to the first dielectric portion of the first electrical contact and the second dielectric portion of the second electrical contact. The first dielectric portion and the second dielectric portion may have a dielectric constant greater than a dielectric constant of the first material.

An optical device includes: a substrate; an optical waveguide that forms a Mach-Zehnder interferometer; a signal electrode; and a ground electrode. The optical waveguide is placed between the signal electrode and the ground electrode.

An electric field is generated in a direction along a surface of the substrate when a voltage is applied between the signal electrode and the ground electrode. The optical waveguide includes a first waveguide through which input light propagates, a curved waveguide which is optically coupled to the first waveguide, and a second waveguide which is optically coupled to the curved waveguide. The signal electrode includes first and second electrodes that are respectively placed near the first and second waveguides. An electric signal is supplied to the first electrode, and an inverted electric signal is supplied to the second electrode.

An optical communication device includes two optical transmitting devices, two optical receiving devices, an optical path component, and an optical fiber adapter. A first converging lens packaged in each of the optical transmitting devices converges a light beam emitted by a light source, and provides the converged light beam for the optical path component. A second converging lens packaged in each of the optical receiving devices converges a light beam from the optical path component, and provides the converged light beam for a photoelectric detection element. The optical path of the optical communication device is simplified and the process costs are reduced. In addition, the quantity of used lenses is reduced, correspondingly reducing the quantity of optical coupling dimensions between mechanical parts and improving production efficiency of combined passive optical network (Combo PON) products.