Silicon photonics leverages mature semiconductor technology to produce cost-effective and high-performance components for various applications in data centers, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. While the geometry of photonic integrated circuits can be characterized by existing means, their optimal and accurate performance requires detailed characterization of the light propagating within them. Here we demonstrate the first, to our knowledge, direct visualization of the light as it travels inside photonic integrated circuits. We employ the natural nonlinear optical properties of silicon to directly map the electric field of the waves guided inside the integrated circuits, characterizing waveguides and multimode splitters while extracting various parameters of the device—all in real-time and in a noninvasive manner. Our approach for visualizing light inside photonic circuits is the only solution directly providing such information without any overhead or penalty, potentially making it a crucial component for the characterization of photonic circuitry, toward their improved design, fabrication, and optimization.

中文翻译：

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揭示光子集成电路中光的演变

硅光子学利用成熟的半导体技术，为数据中心、人工智能和量子计算等各种应用生产具有成本效益的高性能组件。虽然光子集成电路的几何形状可以通过现有手段来表征，但其最佳和准确的性能需要对其内部传播的光进行详细表征。据我们所知，在这里我们首次展示了光在光子集成电路内传播时的直接可视化。我们利用硅的自然非线性光学特性来直接映射集成电路内部传导的波的电场，表征波导和多模分路器，同时提取设备的各种参数——所有这些都是实时且非侵入性的。我们可视化光子电路内部光的方法是直接提供此类信息而没有任何开销或损失的唯一解决方案，可能使其成为表征光子电路的关键组成部分，从而改进其设计、制造和优化。