Smart Photonics

The generation of user-defined optical temporal waveforms with picosecond resolution is an essential task for many applications, ranging from telecommunications to laser engineering. Realizing this functionality in an on-chip reconfigurable platform remains a significant challenge. Towards this goal, autonomous optimization methods are fundamental to counter fabrication imperfections and environmental variations, as well as to enable a wider range of accessible waveform shapes and durations. In this work, we introduce and demonstrate a self-adjusting on-chip optical pulse-shaper based on the concept of temporal coherence synthesis. The scheme enables on-the-fly reconfigurability of output optical waveforms by using an all-optical sampling technique in combination with an evolutionary optimization algorithm. We further show that particle-swarm optimization can outperform more commonly used algorithms in terms of convergence time. Hence, our system combines all key ingredients for realizing fully on-chip smart optical waveform generators for next-generation applications in telecommunications, laser engineering, and nonlinear optics.