Career: Photonic Crystal Waveguides and Device Integration

University Of Southern California, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

This is a proposal to design, build, and evaluate photonic crystal nanophotonic waveguide components and optical systems. The broad goals of this program are to develop a practical nanophotonic technology, and to incorporate knowledge of the advancements in photonics technology into the classroom. There has been a great deal of research into photonic bandgap structures in the last few years. All of this work, however, has been done either as basic research on the optical properties of different dielectric lattices or on single photonic components. My research at USC contains several programs in which the goals are to develop individual nanophotonic devices or to engineer a particular feature of one of these devices. This proposal is intended to build on work ongoing in those programs and to integrate the results into an integrated optical communication technology. Waveguides, of course, are important in their own right, but they are also one of the key elements necessary to combine devices to form functional optical circuits. In doing this, care must be taken to minimize coupling and insertion losses as well. There are several key questions to be investigated in this program. What is the origin of photonic crystal waveguide loss? How do we design efficient guiding in thin patterned films? What are the trade-offs between one-dimensional and two-dimensional periodic guiding structures? How do we go from single devices to an integrated optics technology using photonic crystals? What modeling algorithms can handle these structures efficiently, and are there system level modeling algorithms possible?