Femto-joule-per-bit integrated nanophotonics and challenge for optical computation

Abstract

We review our recent achievements in various energy-efficient nanophotonic devices based on photonic crystals. Strong light confinement of photonic crystals enables large enhancement of light-matter interactions and ultrasmall capacitance for OE/EO conversion devices. Owing to these two features, we have demonstrated that the energy consumption of photonic devices can be reduced down to fJ/bit or less. This achievement may suggest energy-efficient optical link in a processor chip, and even opportunity for ultrasmall latency optoelectronic computations.