Erick Elizalde

Major: Computer Engineering
Mentors: Trevor Steiner, Professor John Bowers & Professor Galan Moody

Electro-Optic Tuning In Aluminium Gallium Arsenide Coupled Micro-Ring Resonators

Electro-optic tuning is a powerful method used for ultrafast and efficient tuning of the refractive index of nonlinear materials via the Pockels effect. The AlGaAs material platform has been shown to demonstrate efficient quantum light generation, such as entangled photon pairs, from spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) . Using the electro-optic effect on AlGaAs is desirable because it would pave the way for the creation of ultrafast on-chip quantum photonics components such as frequency shifters, splitters, and couplers compatible with the ultra-bright quantum light sources previously developed. Using both Lumerical and COMSOL we can simulate our experiment and model the relationship between effective index and applied voltage. The results from our simulations showed that the effective index changes at a rate of -3.8e-6/V. Prior to testing, we screened 120 devices and selected 10 promising devices that showed low loss and prominent resonance splitting for further testing. A python script was developed to analyze the distance between split peaks, allowing for efficient selection. As we increase the applied voltage, we expect to see an increase in split peak distance. This would indicate the effective index within the waveguide has changed, and our tuning device is working. Of the promising devices we tested two that showed no change in split peak distance after applying up to 20V. This could indicate that our current design is inefficient at electro-optic tuning, and new devices with inline electrodes or a change in their geometry is necessary to achieve the desired results.