The growing maturity of integrated photonic technology makes it possible to build increasingly large and complex photonic circuits on the surface of a chip. Today, most of these circuits are designed for a specific application, but the increase in complexity has introduced a generation of photonic circuits that can be programmed using software for a wide variety of functions through a mesh of on-chip waveguides, tunable beam couplers and optical phase shifters. Here we discuss the state of this emerging technology, including recent developments in photonic building blocks and circuit architectures, as well as electronic control and programming strategies. We cover possible applications in linear matrix operations, quantum information processing and microwave photonics, and examine how these generic chips can accelerate the development of future photonic circuits by providing a higher-level platform for prototyping novel optical functionalities without the need for custom chip fabrication.

中文翻译：

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可编程光子电路

集成光子技术的日益成熟使得在芯片表面构建越来越大和越来越复杂的光子电路成为可能。今天，这些电路中的大多数都是为特定应用而设计的，但是随着复杂性的增加，引入了一代光子电路，这些光子电路可以使用软件进行编程，通过片上波导、可调谐光束耦合器和光学移相器。在这里，我们讨论了这种新兴技术的现状，包括光子构建模块和电路架构的最新发展，以及电子控制和编程策略。我们涵盖了线性矩阵运算、量子信息处理和微波光子学中的可能应用，