On-chip, inverse-designed active wavelength division multiplexer at THz frequencies

Valerio Digiorgio (), Urban Senica, Paolo Micheletti, Mattias Beck, Jérôme Faist and Giacomo Scalari ()
Additional contact information
Valerio Digiorgio: ETH Zürich
Urban Senica: ETH Zürich
Paolo Micheletti: ETH Zürich
Mattias Beck: ETH Zürich
Jérôme Faist: ETH Zürich
Giacomo Scalari: ETH Zürich

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract The development of photonic integrated components for the terahertz region has become an active and growing research field. Despite the numerous applications in this spectral range, hardware design still faces several challenges. We demonstrate an on-chip, active wavelength division multiplexer (WDM) operating at THz frequencies (> 1 THz). The WDM architecture is based on an inverse design topology optimization applied to an active quantum cascade heterostructure embedded in a double metal cavity and planarized with a polymer. Such an approach enables the fabrication of a strongly subwavelength device, with a normalized volume of V/λ3 ≃ 0.5. The WDM input is coupled to an integrated THz quantum cascade laser (QCL) frequency comb, providing three 330 GHz broadband output ports, ranging from 2.2 THz–3.2 THz, with a maximum crosstalk of -6 dB. The three ports are outcoupled via integrated broadband patch array antennas enabling surface emission. Such a device can also operate as a stand-alone element, unlocking advanced on-chip signal processing in the THz range.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-62557-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-62557-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-62557-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().