{
  "abstract": "Large language model (LLM)-empowered photonic agents connect natural-language intents to executable solvers, showing significant advantages over conventional optical design approaches. However, current multi-agent frameworks operate within a collaborative paradigm without extrinsic selective pressure, which could inherit shared blind spots, converge prematurely, and fail to accumulate transferable experience for intricate tasks. Here, we introduce a group photonics collaboration-compete evolution (GCCE) framework and its LLM instantiation, termed Photonics-GCCE. Two independent agent groups pursue the same design target and undergo structured competitive evaluation across refractive-index fidelity, fabrication sensitivity, algorithmic adequacy, and physical consistency. Each group comprises a leader and three specialist agents dedicated to materials, optimization, and code validation. Agents refine their skills through competitive evaluation across design rounds. Benchmarking across six device categories against single-agent and multi-agent baselines shows that Photonics-GCCE elevates composite scores into the high 90s, improves fabrication robustness by 15 to 17 points, and reduces solver iterations to roughly 40 rounds. A representative quasi?BIC demonstration achieves a practically fabricable design with a quality factor of 13120. Our results demonstrate Photonics-GCCE as a general-purpose and closed-loop framework for autonomous optical design, capable of producing high-performance, fabrication-ready devices across diverse nanophotonic tasks.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2609.28045",
  "author_total": 23,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Weijie Xu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ming Wang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ruicheng Ma"
    },
    {
      "name": "Zeyong Wei"
    },
    {
      "name": "Di Zhang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jian Chen"
    },
    {
      "name": "Zining Wang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Sijun Hu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Linyuan Dou"
    },
    {
      "name": "Haoyu Li"
    },
    {
      "name": "Haigang Liang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Yijie Luo"
    },
    {
      "name": "Shuqiao Li"
    },
    {
      "name": "Qinghua Song"
    },
    {
      "name": "Huihui Zhu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Hongfei Jiao"
    },
    {
      "name": "Chao Liu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ali Momeni"
    },
    {
      "name": "Zhanshan Wang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Yuzhi Shi"
    },
    {
      "name": "Romain Fleury"
    },
    {
      "name": "Cheng-Wei Qiu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Xinbin Cheng"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/878g8254g52d7.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2609.28045",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "878g8254g52d7",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.28045",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "LicenseRef-arXiv-nonexclusive-1.0",
  "licence_label": "arXiv licence",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "physics.optics"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2208|Photonic and Optical Devices"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7214195317",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.28045",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-23",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/878g8254g52d7.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:23:56Z",
      "native_id": "2609.28045",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.28045"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:physics.optics",
      "subfield": "optics-photonics"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Photonics-GCCE: group collaborative-competitive evolution multi-agent framework for universal and autonomous optical design",
  "title_text": "Photonics-GCCE: group collaborative-competitive evolution multi-agent framework for universal and autonomous optical design",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:23:56Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/878g8254g52d7",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}