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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Thompson, Dominic, Neill, Antonia, Rotenberg, Nir, Hughes, Stephen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.05429
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author Thompson, Dominic
Neill, Antonia
Rotenberg, Nir
Hughes, Stephen
author_facet Thompson, Dominic
Neill, Antonia
Rotenberg, Nir
Hughes, Stephen
contents Photonic crystal waveguides (PCWs) allow for the engineering of photonic modes and band structures to control the flow of light and light-matter interactions within the waveguide. They have shown potential for enhancing optical nonlinearities, quantum dot single photon emissions, as well as optical buffers due to their ability to confine fields on-chip and produce slow-light modes. While these features are promising for applications in nanophotonics, PCWs are prone to high scattering losses due to disorder-induced backscattering, which has remained a significant problem for decades, across various waveguide designs. By combining a fast mode solving approach with physics-based scattering formulas and inverse design, we show how backscattering losses can be significantly reduced, even when working at the same group index. We demonstrate substantial improvements for both W1-like waveguide modes as well topological waveguide modes. Our general methodology is fully three dimensional and can be used to introduce new PCWs for a variety of design metrics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_05429
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reducing Disorder-Induced Backscattering in Photonic Crystal Waveguides through Inverse Design
Thompson, Dominic
Neill, Antonia
Rotenberg, Nir
Hughes, Stephen
Optics
Photonic crystal waveguides (PCWs) allow for the engineering of photonic modes and band structures to control the flow of light and light-matter interactions within the waveguide. They have shown potential for enhancing optical nonlinearities, quantum dot single photon emissions, as well as optical buffers due to their ability to confine fields on-chip and produce slow-light modes. While these features are promising for applications in nanophotonics, PCWs are prone to high scattering losses due to disorder-induced backscattering, which has remained a significant problem for decades, across various waveguide designs. By combining a fast mode solving approach with physics-based scattering formulas and inverse design, we show how backscattering losses can be significantly reduced, even when working at the same group index. We demonstrate substantial improvements for both W1-like waveguide modes as well topological waveguide modes. Our general methodology is fully three dimensional and can be used to introduce new PCWs for a variety of design metrics.
title Reducing Disorder-Induced Backscattering in Photonic Crystal Waveguides through Inverse Design
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.05429