And alternative materials are often unstable, fragile, or even toxic.” Breakthrough with multilayer silicon nitride waveguide ‘Acoustic leakage’ is a big problem in traditional silicon-based platforms preventing strong Brillouin interactions. “Trapping the soundwave in a waveguide long enough to be effective, has proven to be very difficult. “Even though Brillouin scattering has been studied extensively in the last few years, it could never be implemented reliably on a chip suitable for use in our daily lives”, tells Prof David Marpaung, professor leading the Nonlinear Nanophotonics research group. Image 1: 3D illustration of the concept of trapping light and soundwaves in multilayer silicon nitride waveguides Light sent through the waveguide interacts with the soundwave which will reflect a very small and specific part of the light spectrum effectively filtering the signal. In this technique, two finely tuned lasers generate a soundwave with frequencies 1 million times higher than the human hearing threshold and trap it in a waveguide. One pathway to do this effectively is by using a coherent optomechanical interaction technique called stimulated Brillouin scattering. The filtering, amplifying and processing of optical signals is essential in the development of new telecommunication techniques, quantum optics and sensors. Stimulated Brillouin scattering - manipulating light with sound Now, a research team from the University of Twente have added a new solution to the ‘photonic toolbox’. For example, the smallest interferences or quantum effects can distort signals and render them unusable. At this scale, all kinds of new challenges arise. We have nearly reached the limits of ‘traditional’ electronics and are now in the process of transitioning from electronics to photonics using light instead of electrons. In recent decades, chips and electronic devices have become exponentially smaller and faster. Their paper was published in Science Advances magazine on 7 October 2022. The research project successfully proved that manipulating light with sound in large-scale circuits is viable and compatible with current production methods. Scientists at the University of Twente have developed a new technique to effectively trap soundwaves and light, using multilayer silicon nitride waveguides.
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