Recently, Professor Weida Hu from State Key Laboratory of Infrared Physics, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the teams from Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study and Zhejiang University, has made progress in the field of smart on-chip infrared optoelectronic logic gates (OELGs).This work paves the way for the development of new optoelectronic logic computing circuits. The result was published in Nature Photonics titled "On-chip optoelectronic logic gates operating in the telecom band".

The researchers have proposed that integrating multiple silicon waveguides with black phosphorus enables the realization of linear and nonlinear OELGs operating at the short-wavelength infrared telecom band. Based on the novel design of joint localized fields, one device is equivalent to the cascade of multiple detection units, which effectively improves the integration degree of the smart chip. The prepared van der Waals heterojunction shows multi-channel infrared signal processing capabilities. Furthermore, the potential applications of smart on-chip OELGs in the fields of image processing and communication are validated. In particular, the effect of target edge extraction, symbol recognition, infrared image fusion, and encryption and decryption are demonstrated. 

This work is supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Shanghai Science and Technology Commission.

Link to the papers: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01309-7

Contact： wdhu@mail.sitp.ac.cn

Figure: Smart on-chip infrared optoelectronic logic gates and its application demonstration diagram