Shayan Mookherjea, leading a team of researchers at the University of California, San Diego, designed and fabricated a multi-component photonic integrated circuit that includes structures such as couplers, micro-resonators, interferometers, filters, signal splitters and combiners, electronic diodes and heaters. Their work miniaturized a bulky, table-top optical apparatus into a small, stable, electronically-controllable silicon microchip.

Mookherjea and colleagues are now beginning an NSF project to develop photonic microchips that can transmit secure communications over conventional optical fiber through quantum entanglement.