Researchers at KAIST and DGIST have developed programmable photonic circuits with extremely low power consumption and reconfiguration energy, based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technologies.

Researchers at KAIST and DGIST in Korea have developed programmable photonic circuits with extremely low power consumption and reconfiguration energy, based on silicon photonics and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technologies. The photonic circuits use two fundamental optical elements, tunable couplers and phase shifters, with capacitive MEMS actuators to offer unique advantages over conventional thermo-optic approaches in a variety of classical and quantum photonics applications.

"This research represents a significant step forward in the development of programmable photonic circuits," said Prof. Sangyoon Han at DGIST, a corresponding author of the paper. "The use of MEMS technology allows for highly-scalable reconfigurable photonic circuits with low power consumption and reconfiguration energy, making them ideal for a wide range of applications in photonics."

This technology has the potential to transform several industries, from data communications to computing and beyond. "We believe that this technology can also be applied to process quantum information," said Prof. Kyoungsik Yu at KAIST, another corresponding author of the paper.