Flexible on-chip mode-division switching with a new mode converter design

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There have been some significant advances in optical-fiber multimode communications. And important effort in on-chip communication has also been recently reported for realizing mode-division multiplexing (MDM). Because of the difficulty in lack of mode converter which can freely perform mode converting function among different waveguide modes, flexible on-chip mode-division switching communication has been rarely reported. Here we show the first demonstration of mode converter which can convert an arbitrary waveguide mode into any other modes with the help of phase tuning. With that mode converter, two flexible on-chip mode-division switching architectures are proposed. That architecture is compatible with wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) and can enable further scaling of the on-chip communication bandwidth. Our demonstration suggests great potential of mode-divisional switching in the vision of fully flexible, dense, on-chip optical networks.