Dissertation Talk: A Hierarchical Approach to the Design and Optimization of Silicon Photonics

Seminar | May 13 | 3-4 p.m. | Cory Hall, 540A/B

 Andrew Michaels

 Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS)

Silicon photonics is a rapidly maturing platform for optical communication and sensing. As systems leveraging silicon photonics have grown in size and complexity, so too has the demand for high performance silicon photonics components. In order to meet these demands, we propose a hierarchical approach to design and optimization of silicon photonics components. Our approach applies simple physical analysis to choose an effective starting geometry for a two-step gradient-based shape optimization. This optimization employs carefully chosen geometrical constraints in order to consistently produce robust, high performance devices which satisfy practical fabrication constraints of deep UV lithography. In this talk, we will introduce our method and demonstrate how it can be used in order to design silicon photonic components (splitters, waveguide crossings, grating couplers, etc) that achieve record performance.

 All Audiences

 All Audiences

 CA, amichaels@berkeley.edu