Caltech Researchers Achieve Fiber-Optic Performance on Silicon Chips for Photonic Integrated Circuits

Caltech scientists have developed ultra-low-loss optical pathways on silicon wafers, achieving signal loss levels at visible wavelengths comparable to optical fiber. This breakthrough is expected to enable a new generation of highly coherent and energy-efficient photonic integrated circuits (PICs), with potential applications in more powerful lasers, miniature atomic sensors and clocks, quantum systems, and energy-efficient AI data centers.