Adaptive reconfiguration and full control of light structures in optical fibers with programmable silicon photonics
Wu Zhou, Zengqi Chen, Lu Kaihang, Hao Chen, Mingyuan Zhang, Wenzhang Tian, Yeyu Tong
Abstract
The ability to control light structures in all dimensions is crucial for a wide range of fundamental and advanced photonics applications, including microscopy, imaging, sensing, communications, and quantum information processing. However, existing chip-based solutions cannot achieve simultaneous manipulation of spatial and polarization distributions, and often exhibit limited emission efficiency and beam quality. In this study, we demonstrate a programmable silicon photonic chip that can locally, efficiently, and fully generate and control structured light over both spatial and polarization distributions. High emission efficiency and intensity overlap integrals can be obtained in our experiment. Furthermore, our photonic processor can be actively programmed to invert the unknown random transmission matrix of a few-mode optical fiber and arbitrarily project the input vector into the desired spatial and polarization distributions in real time. Our findings offer a scalable pathway towards achieving a portable and reliable system for full control, efficient emission, and adaptive reconfiguration of light structures across various applications.