Conventional electronic processors, which are the mainstream and almost invincible hardware for computation, are approaching their limits in both computational power and energy efficiency, especially in large-scale matrix computation. By combining electronic, photonic, and optoelectronic devices and circuits together, silicon-based optoelectronic matrix computation has been demonstrating great capabilities and feasibilities. Matrix computation is one of the few general-purpose computations that have the potential to exceed the computation performance of digital logic circuits in energy efficiency, computational power, and latency. Moreover, electronic processors also suffer from the tremendous energy consumption of the digital transceiver circuits during high-capacity data interconnections. We review the recent progress in photonic matrix computation, including matrix-vector multiplication, convolution, and multiply–accumulate operations in artificial neural networks, quantum information processing, combinatorial optimization, and compressed sensing, with particular attention paid to energy consumption. We also summarize the advantages of silicon-based optoelectronic matrix computation in data interconnections and photonic-electronic integration over conventional optical computing processors. Looking toward the future of silicon-based optoelectronic matrix computations, we believe that silicon-based optoelectronics is a promising and comprehensive platform for disruptively improving general-purpose matrix computation performance in the post-Moore’s law era.

Nano-focusing structures based on hybrid plasmonic waveguides are likely to play a key role in strong nonlinear optical devices. Although the insertion loss is considerable, a significant nonlinear phase shift may be achieved by decreasing the nano-focusing device footprint and careful parameter optimization. Here, we study the Kerr effect in hybrid plasmonic waveguides by analyzing the mode effective area, energy velocity, and insertion loss. Particularly, by utilizing plasmonics to manipulate the effective index and mode similarity, the TM mode is reflected and absorbed, while the TE mode passes through with relatively low propagation loss. By providing a deep understanding of hybrid plasmonic waveguides for nonlinear applications, we indicate pathways for their future optimization.

A low-loss hybrid plasmonic transverse magnetic (TM)-pass polarizer has been demonstrated utilizing polarization-dependent mode conversion. Taking advantage of the silicon hybrid plasmonic slot waveguide (HPSW), the unwanted transverse electric (TE) fundamental mode can be efficiently converted first to a TM higher-order mode and then suppressed by a power combiner, while the retained TM fundamental mode can pass through with negligible influence. Since the HPSW feature both strong structural asymmetry and a small interaction area in the cross-section between the metal and optical field, the optimized insertion loss of the device is as low as 0.4 dB. At the wavelength of 1550 nm, the extinction ratio is 28.3 dB with a moderate footprint of 2.38μm×10μm. For the entire C band, the average reflection of the TE mode is suppressed below ?14dB, and the extinction ratio is over 18.6 dB. This work provides another more efficient and effective approach for better on-chip polarizers.

Optical microring resonators are extensively employed in a wide range of physical studies and applications due to the resonance enhancement property. Incorporating coupling control of a microring resonator is necessary in many scenarios, but modifications are essentially added to the resonator and impair the capability of optical enhancement. Here, we propose a flexible coupling structure based on adiabatic elimination that allows low-loss active coupling control without any modifications to the resonators. The self-coupling coefficient can be monotonically or non-monotonically controllable by the proposed coupler, potentially at a high speed. The characteristic of the coupler when implemented in silicon microring resonators is investigated in detail using substantiated analytical theory and experiments. This work provides a general method in coupling control while ensuring the resonance enhancement property, making active coupling control in a resonator-waveguide system feasible.

We report mid-infrared Ge-on-Si waveguide-based PIN diode modulators operating at wavelengths of 3.8 and 8 μm. Fabricated 1-mm-long electro-absorption devices exhibit a modulation depth of >35 dB with a 7 V forward bias at 3.8 μm, and a similar 1-mm-long Mach–Zehnder modulator has a Vπ·L of 0.47 V·cm. Driven by a 2.5Vpp RF signal, 60 MHz on-off keying modulation was demonstrated. Electro-absorption modulation at 8 μm was demonstrated preliminarily, with the device performance limited by large contact separation and high contact resistance.