Scientific Reports (May 2017)

Fabrication-constrained nanophotonic inverse design

  • Alexander Y. Piggott,
  • Jan Petykiewicz,
  • Logan Su,
  • Jelena Vučković

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01939-2
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 7

Abstract

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Abstract A major difficulty in applying computational design methods to nanophotonic devices is ensuring that the resulting designs are fabricable. Here, we describe a general inverse design algorithm for nanophotonic devices that directly incorporates fabrication constraints. To demonstrate the capabilities of our method, we designed a spatial-mode demultiplexer, wavelength demultiplexer, and directional coupler. We also designed and experimentally demonstrated a compact, broadband 1 × 3 power splitter on a silicon photonics platform. The splitter has a footprint of only 3.8 × 2.5 μm, and is well within the design rules of a typical silicon photonics process, with a minimum radius of curvature of 100 nm. Averaged over the designed wavelength range of 1400–1700 nm, our splitter has a measured insertion loss of 0.642 ± 0.057 dB and power uniformity of 0.641 ± 0.054 dB.