Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have introduced a new methodology for designing integrated photonic waveguide bends with extremely compact footprints and low loss. Their work is described in the paper “Low-loss ultra-compact photonic bends with enhanced fabrication tolerance for commercial foundry processes”, published in Optics Letters.
Methodology and key idea
The team experimentally validates a design for high-performance waveguide bends with a 2.3 µm radius. The approach relies on a topology optimization framework that incorporates what the authors describe as a novel contour constraint.
According to the abstract, this contour constraint is used to:
- improve the performance of the photonic bends,
- reduce sensitivity to fabrication variability,
- and still satisfy commercial foundry design rule checks.
Focus on fabrication tolerance
The work explicitly targets enhanced fabrication tolerance while maintaining low-loss, ultra-compact photonic bends compatible with commercial foundry processes.
The paper is authored by Joshua J. Wong, Robert P. Pesch, Archana Kaushalram, Jacob M. Hiesener, and Stephen E. Ralph, and appears in Optics Letters 51, no. 18 (2026): 5185–5188. DOI: 10.1364/OL.611581.
Source: Semiconductor Engineering
