[TuD3] LiDAR and SDM Devices

[TuD3-1] Photonic crystal technology for datacom and LiDAR applications

Tutorial

〇Toshihiko Baba (Yokohama National Univ., Japan)

Photonic crystal has a history of 40 years, and some devices were commercialized recently. But they do not use a photonic band gap, which has been thought as the most important property of photonic crystals and actually produced various unique functions such as slow light. This presentation focuses on modulator and LiDAR, utilizing slow light in photonic crystals fabricated by silicon photonics technology.
Silicon Mach-Zehnder modulators are now used in datacom transceivers. The key issues are the compact module and high speed toward ≥400G standards. Slow light phase shifter allows 10-fold size reduction as compared with conventional devices, maintaining a wide working spectrum which tolerates a wide temperature range. By optimizing RF electrodes and termination, it now operates at 50–64 Gbps.
LiDAR is a 3D sensor, having a huge demand for autonomous vehicles, robots, security, etc. Photonic crystal waveguide array with a collimator lens attached acts as a nonmechanical beam steering device operated by wavelength scanning or thermo-optic control. It can be integrated with coherent detection components to be a FMCW LiDAR at eye-safe wavelengths. Compared with optical phased array, a competitive device, this device steers a higher resolution beam with a simpler control.

Bio:Toshihiko Baba received the B.E. and Ph.D. degrees from the Division of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Yokohama National University, Japan, in 1985 and 1990, respectively. He became an Associate Professor and a Full Professor at Yokohama National University in 1994 and 2005, respectively. He has studied ARROW waveguides, VCSELs, microdisk lasers, photonic crystals (PCs) and Si photonics. He has demonstrated PC-based slow-light waveguides, high-speed modulators, nanolasers, biosensors and LEDs, and various Si photonics components including first Si arrayed waveguide grating. He is the author or coauthor of approximately 200 papers with more than 13,000 citations (Google Scholar). He is a member of JSAP, IEICE and OSA, and an Associate Member of Science Council of Japan. Currently he is serving as a vice president of JSAP. He was the recipient of JSPS Award in 2005, IEEE/LEOS Distinguished Lecturer Award in 2006/2007, Ichimura Academic Award in 2012, and Education, Culture, Sports, Science Minister’s Commendation in 2016.