Ultralow-power, high-speed programmable Si photonic circuits with InGaAsP membrane
Abstract
Programmable photonic circuits have emerged as a promising platform for applications ranging from optical communications to artificial-intelligence computing and quantum information processing, but their scaling is fundamentally constrained by their essential building block, the optical phase shifter. Existing phase-shifter technologies face inherent trade-offs among power consumption, operating speed, modulation efficiency, optical loss, and thermal crosstalk, making it challenging to realize high-performance, large-scale programmable photonic circuits. Here, we present a programmable photonic circuit based on InGaAsP/Si hybrid metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) phase shifters that combines ultralow power consumption, high-speed operation, high modulation efficiency, low optical loss and negligible thermal crosstalk. The phase shifters combine the low leakage current of a MOS capacitor with the strong carrier-induced refractive-index modulation of an InGaAsP membrane, achieving a static power consumption below 30 fW/π, a switching time of 555 ps, a phase-modulation efficiency (VπL) of 0.13 Vcm and a carrier-induced excess insertion loss of only 0.20 dB/π. We integrate these phase shifters into a programmable Mach-Zehnder interferometer mesh and demonstrate optical switching and programmable unitary transformations, while maintaining femtowatt-level static power consumption across integrated phase shifters. We further demonstrate circuit-level operation with negligible thermal crosstalk, addressing a major obstacle to densely integrated programmable photonic circuits. These results establish a foundation for scalable, high-performance programmable photonic systems for next-generation signal processing and computation.
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BibTeX
@misc{akazawa2026ultralowpower,
title = {{Ultralow-power, high-speed programmable Si photonic circuits with InGaAsP membrane}},
author = {Tomohiro Akazawa and Rui Tang and Hanzhi Tang and Makoto Okano and Yangyang Wan and Nobuyuki Matsuda and Kasidit Toprasertpong and Shinichi Takagi and Mitsuru Takenaka},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.24611},
eprint = {2609.24611},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24611},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Ultralow-power, high-speed programmable Si photonic circuits with InGaAsP membrane
AU - Tomohiro Akazawa
AU - Rui Tang
AU - Hanzhi Tang
AU - Makoto Okano
AU - Yangyang Wan
AU - Nobuyuki Matsuda
AU - Kasidit Toprasertpong
AU - Shinichi Takagi
AU - Mitsuru Takenaka
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.24611
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24611
AB - Programmable photonic circuits have emerged as a promising platform for applications ranging from optical communications to artificial-intelligence computing and quantum information processing, but their scaling is fundamentally constrained by their essential building block, the optical phase shifter. Existing phase-shifter technologies face inherent trade-offs among power consumption, operating speed, modulation efficiency, optical loss, and thermal crosstalk, making it challenging to realize high-performance, large-scale programmable photonic circuits. Here, we present a programmable photonic circuit based on InGaAsP/Si hybrid metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) phase shifters that combines ultralow power consumption, high-speed operation, high modulation efficiency, low optical loss and negligible thermal crosstalk. The phase shifters combine the low leakage current of a MOS capacitor with the strong carrier-induced refractive-index modulation of an InGaAsP membrane, achieving a static power consumption below 30 fW/π, a switching time of 555 ps, a phase-modulation efficiency (V_πL) of 0.13 Vcm and a carrier-induced excess insertion loss of only 0.20 dB/π. We integrate these phase shifters into a programmable Mach-Zehnder interferometer mesh and demonstrate optical switching and programmable unitary transformations, while maintaining femtowatt-level static power consumption across integrated phase shifters. We further demonstrate circuit-level operation with negligible thermal crosstalk, addressing a major obstacle to densely integrated programmable photonic circuits. These results establish a foundation for scalable, high-performance programmable photonic systems for next-generation signal processing and computation.
ER -