General-purpose programmable photonic processor for advanced radiofrequency applications.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38378716.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-45888-7 and PMC identifier 10879507.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
A general-purpose photonic processor can be built integrating a silicon photonic programmable core in a technology stack comprising an electronic monitoring and controlling layer and a software layer for resource control and programming. This processor can leverage the unique properties of photonics in terms of ultra-high bandwidth, high-speed operation, and low power consumption while operating in a complementary and synergistic way with electronic processors. These features are key in applications such as next-generation 5/6 G wireless systems where reconfigurable filtering, frequency conversion, arbitrary waveform generation, and beamforming are currently provided by microwave photonic subsystems that cannot be scaled down. Here we report the first general-purpose programmable processor with the remarkable capability to implement all the required basic functionalities of a microwave photonic system by suitable programming of its resources. The processor is fabricated in silicon photonics and incorporates the full photonic/electronic and software stack.