Multimedia Gallery - Small, stable, controllable microchips may replace table-top components for quantum communication.

Multi-component photonic integrated circuit

August 4, 2016

Small, stable, controllable microchips may replace table-top components for quantum communication.

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.

Credit: Shayan Mookherjea, UC San Diego

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