Programmable nonlinearity within nanophotonic waveguides
Abstract
Nonlinear nanophotonics enables the engineering of optical functions using light-matter interactions in nanoscale structures with carefully designed geometries. Phase matching in nonlinear optics is typically essential for realizing high efficiency for desired processes and engineering of sophisticated functions, but it can be challenging to reliably achieve in nanophotonic waveguides. Conventionally, phase matching in nanophotonics is achieved through nanofabrication, e.g., by poling a device's nonlinear material using electrodes with fixed geometry. This approach has two drawbacks: the optical functions a device can perform are fixed at the time of fabrication, and the device's performance can be degraded by fabrication imperfections. Here, we circumvent these limitations by engineering programmable χ(2) holograms inside nanophotonic waveguides, enabling reconfigurable quasi-phase matching that can be updated after device fabrication in approximately one second. By projecting structured optical illumination onto photoconductive electrodes, we generated spatial patterns of electric-field-induced χ(2) to exert spectral, modal, and polarization control over three-wave mixing processes. This programmability also allowed us to employ closed-loop in situ optimization to compensate for phase mismatch in complex waveguide structures, such as width-modulated waveguides and spiral waveguides exceeding 10 cm in length. Furthermore, we show that programmable nonlinearity enables powerful in situ diagnostics, including direct dispersion measurements of various transverse modes and on-chip wavefront phase tomography. Our work opens up the possibility of building cascaded nonlinear nanophotonic systems where yield issues due to fabrication variations can be sidestepped while retaining the benefits of etched waveguides such as confinement and dispersion engineering.
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BibTeX
@misc{ash2026programmable,
title = {{Programmable nonlinearity within nanophotonic waveguides}},
author = {Benjamin A. Ash and Ryotatsu Yanagimoto and Mandar M. Sohoni and Yang Xu and Yiqi Zhao and Martin M. Stein and Fan O. Wu and Marc Jankowski and Logan G. Wright and Tatsuhiro Onodera and Peter L. McMahon},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.02024},
eprint = {2610.02024},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.02024},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Programmable nonlinearity within nanophotonic waveguides
AU - Benjamin A. Ash
AU - Ryotatsu Yanagimoto
AU - Mandar M. Sohoni
AU - Yang Xu
AU - Yiqi Zhao
AU - Martin M. Stein
AU - Fan O. Wu
AU - Marc Jankowski
AU - Logan G. Wright
AU - Tatsuhiro Onodera
AU - Peter L. McMahon
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.02024
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.02024
AB - Nonlinear nanophotonics enables the engineering of optical functions using light-matter interactions in nanoscale structures with carefully designed geometries. Phase matching in nonlinear optics is typically essential for realizing high efficiency for desired processes and engineering of sophisticated functions, but it can be challenging to reliably achieve in nanophotonic waveguides. Conventionally, phase matching in nanophotonics is achieved through nanofabrication, e.g., by poling a device's nonlinear material using electrodes with fixed geometry. This approach has two drawbacks: the optical functions a device can perform are fixed at the time of fabrication, and the device's performance can be degraded by fabrication imperfections. Here, we circumvent these limitations by engineering programmable χ^(2) holograms inside nanophotonic waveguides, enabling reconfigurable quasi-phase matching that can be updated after device fabrication in approximately one second. By projecting structured optical illumination onto photoconductive electrodes, we generated spatial patterns of electric-field-induced χ^(2) to exert spectral, modal, and polarization control over three-wave mixing processes. This programmability also allowed us to employ closed-loop in situ optimization to compensate for phase mismatch in complex waveguide structures, such as width-modulated waveguides and spiral waveguides exceeding 10 cm in length. Furthermore, we show that programmable nonlinearity enables powerful in situ diagnostics, including direct dispersion measurements of various transverse modes and on-chip wavefront phase tomography. Our work opens up the possibility of building cascaded nonlinear nanophotonic systems where yield issues due to fabrication variations can be sidestepped while retaining the benefits of etched waveguides such as confinement and dispersion engineering.
ER -