Unconventional Optical Elements for Information Storage, Processing and Communications

Coherent terahertz beams with radial polarization of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd orders have been generated with the use of silicon subwavelength diffractive optical elements (DOEs). Silicon elements were fabricated by a technology similar to the technology used before for the fabrication of DOEs forming laser terahertz beams with pre-given mode content. The beam of the terahertz Novosibirsk Free Electron Laser was used as the illuminating beam. The experimental results are in good agreement with the results of the computer simulation.

One of the promising methods for manufacturing high-aperture and sub-wavelength diffractive optical elements (DOE) is direct laser writing on thin metal films in regime of through oxidation. The amplitude diffractive metal/oxide structure is formed directly by localized laser heating without post-processing using liquid or dry etching. Optical diffractometry based on an analysis of the diffraction pattern obtained from a locally illuminated region of the grating is quite suitable indirect method for inspecting the metal/oxide gratings with a submicron period. Measurement of the angular distribution of diffraction orders allows determining local period of the DOE structure, and measuring the intensity distribution over all diffraction orders allows determining the duty cycle of the grating. In this paper, the configurations of instrumentation schemes of metal/oxide gratings monitoring and algorithms for processing of diffraction patterns formed at illuminating the metal/oxide gratings by probe laser beam are considered.

At present time methods of optical encryption are actively developed. The majority of existing methods of optical encryption use not only light intensity distribution, easily registered with photosensors, but also its phase distribution which require application of complex holographic schemes in conjunction with spatially coherent monochromatic illumination. This leads to complex optical schemes and low decryption quality. To eliminate these disadvantages it is possible to implement optical encryption using spatially incoherent monochromatic illumination which requires registration of light intensity distribution only. Encryption is accomplished by means of optical convolution of image of scene to be encrypted and encryption diffractive optical element (DOE) point spread function (PSF) which serves as encryption key. Encryption process is described as follows. Scene is illuminated with spatially-incoherent monochromatic light. In the absence of encryption DOE lens forms image of scene in photosensor plane. DOE serves as encryption element, its PSF - encryption key. Light passing through DOE forms convolution of object image and DOE PSF. Registered by photosensor convolution is encrypted image. Decryption was conducted numerically on computer by means of inverse filtration with regularization. Kinoforms were used as encryption DOE because they have single diffraction order. Two liquid crystal (LC) spatial light modulators (SLM) were used to implement dynamic digital information input and dynamic encryption key change. As input scene amplitude LC SLM HoloEye LC2002 with 800×600 pixels 32×32 μm² and 256 gray levels was used. To image synthesized encryption kinoforms phase LC SLM HoloEye PLUTO VIS with 1920×1080 pixels 8×8 μm² and 256 phase levels was used. Set of test images was successfully optically encrypted and then numerically decrypted. Encrypted images contents are hidden. Decrypted images despite quite high noise levels are positively recognizable. Results of optical encryption and numerical decryption are presented.

We are delighted to introduce a Special Issue on Optical Interconnects for the IET Optoelectronics magazine. This issue presents the current status as well as some of the outstanding progress that has been witnessed in the rapidly evolving area of optical interconnects. Today, data centres (DC) and high-performance computers are struggling with limited interconnect capacity and increased power consumption while trying to meet overwhelming bandwidth demands. As photonics technologies have been rapidly maturing, optical interconnects have come into the spotlight as the means to cope with the emerging bandwidth, energy, and capacity needs. As such, a wealth of photonic interconnect solutions across the DC hierarchy has unfolded, covering from electro-optic boards to transceiver development, on-chip and on-board switches and interconnects as well as novel noninvasive monitoring methods for light controlling for compensating thermal crosstalk, fabrication tolerances and unstable environmental conditions. At the same time, the increased penetration of optical interconnects in short-reach communications, such as board and chip levels, has triggered new challenges in photonics technologies calling for new innovations with respect to integration techniques and packaging methods. This Special Issue of IET includes integrated circuits, assembly techniques, systems-level architectures, and controlling methods related to short reach ‘chip-to-chip’, ‘in-the-box’, and ‘box-to-box’ communications. Specific areas covered by this special issue include: Silicon photonic transceiver technologies and flat DC topologies; High-speed electro-optic hosting boards and fast, energy-efficient electronics; DC switches and co-packaged optic (CPO) technologies; and Noninvasive controlling techniques for complex photonic integrated circuits. The four papers in this special section promote high-performance optical interconnect architectures and key technologies to tackle the rising bandwidth demands of DCs. They cover (a) co-packaged DC optics, (b) silicon technology transceiver modules and high-speed hosting boards for multisocket server board (MSB) interconnects and (c) automated controlling architecture for complex photonic systems; Items (b) and (c) draw from impressive achievements accomplished through the recently completed European H2020 Project ICT-STREAMS. This report written by C. Mickenberg tries to shed light on motivating factors behind co-packaged optics (CPO), the trade-offs involved and their potential impact on data centre network architectures. The article reviews the evolution of DC switch application-specific integrated circuit (ASICs) and DC optics, provides a future road map and finally discusses the potential impact of CPO on the network architecture. This topic is covered by two articles. The first, written by M. Morallis-Pegios, proposes using silicon photonics to advance interconnect throughput, socket connectivity and energy efficiency in MSB layouts by enabling a flat-topology wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) point-to-point optical MSB interconnect scheme. WDM silicon photonic transceivers coassembled with their electronic circuits achieving a 50-Gb/s line rate and 400-Gb/s aggregate data transmission are demonstrated. The article also proposes silicon photonic Arrayed Waveguide Grating Router (AWGRs) that can offer collision-less time-of-flight connectivity for up to 16 nodes. The second article covering that area is written by T. Lamprecht and reports on the development of electro-optic hosting boards for on-board transceiver subassemblies which is required to eventually form the Tb/s multi-socket onboard communication. The article also discusses the electrical interface as well as photonic board requirements, including the manufacturing technique and the assembly concept that was followed to deliver terabyte per second multichip optical communication. This article, written by F. Zanetto, introduces a novel dithering technique for real-time control of multiple cascaded photonic integrated devices, proposing a calibration-free strategy to support the development and real-life diffusion of increasingly complex photonic systems. The article elaborates on the implementation of a calibration-free automated control loop exploiting integral controllers to close a real-time feedback and stabilise the optimum working point of the employed photonic devices. The effectiveness of the proposed architectural approach is experimentally validated with the error-free routing and transmission of a 30-Gbit/s optical signal traversing a cascade of micro-ring resonator filters. All of the articles selected for this Special Issue present a wide variety of key topics and significant results addressing optical interconnects in high-performance data communication systems, including new progress on architectures, systems and packaging techniques as well as novel optimised controlling methods. As guest editors, we would like to thank all of the authors for their high-quality submissions that significantly contribute to the optical interconnect field. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their valuable and constructive technical comments that greatly enhance the Special Issue, because their feedback and comments ensure the high quality of the IET Optoelectronics Journal. We hope that this IET Special Issue will provide a useful reference of the state-of-the-art in optical interconnects to readers, and we anticipate such technological perspectives will stimulate new advancements and technological outcomes that will in turn enrich the growing field of optical interconnects. This work was supported by the E.C. through the H2020-ICT-STREAMS research project (688172).

Nulling interferometry constitutes a very promising technique in observational astrophysics. This method consists in attenuating the signal of a bright astrophysical object in order to detect much fainter nearby features, e.g. exoplanets around their host star. An on-axis destructive interference is created by adjusting the phases of the beams coming from various telescopes. The huge flux ratio between the parent star and the planet (106 in the thermal infrared) requires unprecedented high performance broadband phase shifters. We present a new design for these key components called Achromatic Phase Shifters (APS). We propose to use subwavelength diffractive optical elements under total internal reflection (TIR) incidence. Our component can be seen as an evolution of the Fresnel Rhomb technology.

We present two new phase mask coronagraphs implemented with subwavelength diffractive optical elements. The first one is an evolution of the four quadrant phase mask coronagraph (FQPM), which resolves the over the whole K band. These coronagraphs could be used alone on single-pupil telescopes either in space or on the ground (with an adaptive optics system) to detect exoplanets.

Liquid crystal spatial light modulators are used in a wide range of modern problems in science and technology. These modulators are used to control the amplitude, phase, and direction of propagation of coherent optical radiation in optical information processing systems. However, the influence of the characteristics of the temporal dynamics of liquid crystal spatial light modulators on the performance of information optical systems, including diffractive neural networks, has not been sufficiently studied. The article presents the results of a study of the temporal dynamics of phase modulation of the liquid crystal spatial light modulator SLM-200 (Santec, Japan). Computer-synthesized binary phase diffractive optical elements were used in the experiments, and the characteristics of the temporal dynamics of the optical modulator were measured: 125 ms is the rise time of the diffraction efficiency when displaying diffractive optical elements on the screen; 61.9 ms is the decay time when switching frames. With these characteristics, it is possible to ensure the formation of a variable optical field at a frame display frequency of 2 Hz with an interference level of –17.1 dB. Increasing the frame display frequency leads to the appearance of unavoidable interframe interference, which in turn limits the effective performance of the information system. The results obtained can be useful in designing high-performance optical information processing systems and diffraction neural networks

Liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LCSLM) realizing equal-intensity multiple beams often has some features, i.e., phase valley between two adjacent pixels, flyback region when phase decreases immediately from 2π to 0, and inevitable backplane curvature, which are different from those of most conventional diffractive optical elements (DOEs), such as static DOEs. For optimal intensity uniformity, equal-intensity multi-beam generation must be considered for these artifacts. We present a tunable-grating method in which the intensity uniformity can be improved by considering the LCSLM artifacts. For instance, tuning phase modulation depth of the grating, called isosceles triangle multilevel phase grating (ITMPG), can be used not only to improve the intensity uniformity, but also to fast steer four beams with narrow beamwidths, determined by the same effective aperture of ITMPG. Improved intensity uniformity and high relative diffraction efficiency are demonstrated through experiments with phase-only LCSLM.

Optical lithography with its 193nm technology is pushed to reach and shift its limits even further. There is strong demand on innovations in illumination part of exposure tools. Current illumination systems consisting of diffractive and refractive optical elements offer numerous benefits such as optimized laser beam shape with high homogeneity and high numerical aperture enabling high efficiency. LIMO's unique production technology is capable to manufacture free form surfaces on monolithic arrays larger than 250mm with high precision and reproducibility. Different kinds of intensity distributions with best uniformities or customized profiles have been achieved by using LIMO's refractive optical elements. Recently LIMO pushed the limits of this lens production technology and was able to manufacture first diffractive optical elements (DOE) based on continuous relief's profile. Beside for the illumination devices in lithography, DOEs find wide use in optical devices for other technological applications, such as optical communications and data processing. Up to now DOE designs follow the principle of phase diffraction gratings. Its diffraction structure with a periodic phase profile performs a superposition of beams with predefined energy ratios. Due to the application for high precise laser-beam shaping and beam splitting in optical technologies and optical fiber networks, number of grating orders is increased up to some tens or even hundreds. Classic lithographic technologies lead to quantized (step-like) profiles of diffractive micro-reliefs, which causes a decrease of beam splitter's diffractive efficiency. The newest development of LIMO's microlens fabrication technology allows us to make a step from free programmable microlens profiles to diffractive optical elements with high efficiency. Our first results of this approach are demonstrated in this paper. Diffractive beam splitters are presented. A special mathematical method is used to design diffractive optical elements with continuous surface profiles. Comparison between theoretical simulations and experimental results shows very good correlation.

We show the feasibility of two new programmable diffractive optical elements (DOE). On one hand, we demonstrate the realization of programmable apodizers. With the term apodizer we refer to non-uniform amplitude filters used to modify the point-spread function (PSF) of an optical system. On the other hand, we show the simultaneous realization of a Fresnel lens and an amplitude filter in a single DOE: the programmable amplitude apodized Fresnel lens (PAAFL). Two different modulation regimes are required to generate these DOEs: amplitude-only regime for the programmable apodizer and phase-only regime for the PAAFL. We show that a twisted-nematic liquid crystal spatial light modulator (TN-LCSLM) inserted between two wave plates and two polarizers is able to provide both modulation regimes. Different types of amplitude filters, such as axial hyperresolving, transverse apodizing and transverse hyperresolving have been implemented both as programmable apodizers and as PAAFLs. We provide experimental results for the performance of the two new DOEs. The agreement with the numerical results is excellent, thus demonstrating the feasibility of our proposal.

Free-space optical interconnects for microelectronics and multiprocessor parallel computing systems offer better scalability because less silicon area will be occupied by interconnections and they have a faster clock speed and higher bandwidth at power levels than do purely electronic systems. For stability and ruggedness optoelectronic systems that combine optics with electronics based on free space optical interconnection need to be packaged. In packaging these types of systems, diffractive optical elements (DOEs) are often used because their fabrication is compatible with VLSI fabrication and they can be flexibly designed by computer. The volume of the packaged system depends on the f-number of the DOE utilized in the system: the smaller the f-number, the more compact the packaged system. Lower f- number DOEs can be obtained by stacking more than one DOE together. Stacking also helps to achieve larger diffraction angles to facilitate longer distance interconnects. The problems to be solved are (a) accurate alignment between DOEs on the opposite sides of one substrate or between DOEs on separate substrates and (b) bonding or assembly of separate substrates. In this presentation, the alignment and assembly procedures for stacking more than one DOE together will be discussed, and the experimental results shown.

Multi-channel optical interconnects were built using ultra-thin silicon CMOS driven vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser array and photodetector array. Optical data and image communication and signal processing by diffractive optical elements (DOE) were demonstrated from the optical interconnects.

We present results of using a low-power laser diode to record a real-time hologram in a specially doped LiNbO3 crystal in this paper. The important aspect of this specially doped photorefractive crystal is that the sensitivity to red light is several orders higher than that of the conventional crystals, for which it makes the construction of a crystal hologram by using a low power, small size, and low cost laser diode possible. One of the major disadvantages of using the currently available crystals to record holograms is the high power requirement of the light source. Since the low power diode laser is used for the writing and the reading processes, the specially doped crystal hologram can last much longer than that of a high power laser. In the experiments, a 10 mW laser diode with an output wavelength of 670 nm is used. Our results show that very good reconstructed images can be obtained by using a simple diode laser. Because of the low- power requirement, this specially doped crystal would have a significant impact on many practical applications, namely, optical interconnections, switching, etc.

In this paper we report multiple optical trapping of microscopic dielectric particles using diffractive optical elements implemented on twisted nematic liquid crystal spatial light modulators. The particles are trapped in arrays disposed in plane or in volume and can be moved independently in x-y-z by changing the configuration of the diffractive optical element. We show also multiple trapping using Laguerre-Gaussian and Gaussian beams simultaneously. The orbital angular momentum of the Laguerre-Gaussian beam is transferred to the particle, making it to move on a circular trajectory defined by the intensity pattern specific to this beam. We use sample cells built with two microscope slides separated by 120 µm with a sticky tape. The space between the two slides is filled with 2 µm diameter silica spheres diluted in water (concentration 0.026% wt). We show that optical trapping is also possible in a small glass capillary with a diameter of 100 µm.

Liquid crystal spatial light modulators for precise dynamic manipulation of coherent light fields, used in diffractive optoelectronic optical data processing systems, are considered. This paper presents the results of a study of the temporal dynamics of the HoloEye PLUTO-2 VIS-016 liquid crystal spatial light modulator for analysis of light fields rate modulation. Experiments using binary phase computer generated holograms and binary focusing phase diffractive optical elements were conducted. Based on experimental data, the time characteristics of the modulator response were determined. It was found that when the rise time of the diffraction efficiency was 146 ms after the hologram displaying onto the SLM, and when switching to a new hologram, the decay time was 97 ms. These results allowed the dynamic generation of an alternating holograms at a refresh rate of 2 Hz with an interference level of –16 dB. Increasing the frequency of fringe pattern updates increases the level of interframe noise in the generated holograms, and when updated at the specification frequency, the generated distributions cannot be separated. Determining the actual frame rate based on the rise and decay times of the diffraction efficiency makes it possible to correctly calculate the minimum operating time of an information optical system containing a liquid crystal spatial light modulator.