Research progress of intelligent design of on-chip optical interconnection devices

Abstract

Compared with traditional communication technologies such as electrical interconnection, optical interconnection technology has the advantages of large bandwidth, low energy consumption, anti-interference, etc. Therefore, optical interconnection is becoming an important approach and development trend of short distance and very short distance data terminal communication. As the implementation of chip level optical interconnection, silicon on insulator (SOI) based on-chip optical interconnection has been widely applied with the support of a series of multiplexing technologies. In recent decades, many on-chip optical interconnection devices have been developed based on conventional design methods such as coupled-mode, multimode interference, and transmission line theories. However, when used in device design, these conventional methods often face the problems such as complex theoretical calculations and high labor costs. Many of the designed devices also face the issues of insufficient compactness and integration, as well as single function. Intelligent design method has the advantages such as pellucid principle, high freedom of optimization, and good material compatibility, which can solve the problems of conventional design methods to a large extent. With the wide application of intelligent design methods in the design of on-chip optical interconnection devices, these devices have gradually shown three main trends. Firstly, the size of on-chip optical interconnect devices is gradually developing towards ultra compact sizes. Secondly, the number of intelligently designed controllable on-chip optical interconnect devices is increasing. Thirdly, on-chip optical interconnect devices are gradually developing towards integration and systematization. This paper summarizes the most commonly used intelligent design methods of photonic devices, including intelligent algorithms based intelligent design methods and neural networks based intelligent design methods. After that, the above three important research advances and trends of intelligently designed on-chip optical interconnection devices are analyzed in detail. At the same time, the application of phase change materials (PCM) in the design of controllable photonic devices are also reviewed. Finally, the future development of intelligently designed on-chip optical interconnection devices is discussed.