Unlocking the power of silicon photonics through inverse design and heterogeneous integration

Novel computational techniques such as photonics inverse design, along with new nanofabrication approaches, play a crucial role in building scalable integrated photonics. While initial inverse design demonstrations focused on individual small footprint devices, recent developments enable rapid optimization of large footprint structures in 3D, with linear dimensions over 100 microns, and fully compatible with foundry fabrication. We illustrate this with recent demonstrations of powerful integrated photonic systems for application such as optical interconnects. To enable all necessary functionalities, future photonic systems also require integration of traditional and non-traditional photonic materials, including silicon, silicon-carbide, diamond, sapphire, and strong electro-optic materials such as lithium niobate, strontium and barium titanate. We show that compact and efficient lasers, isolators, electro-optic modulators, and detectors can all be integrated on silicon platform.