Photonic topology optimization with semiconductor-foundry design-rule constraints

We present a unified density-based topology-optimization framework that yields integrated photonic designs optimized for manufacturing constraints including all those of commercial semiconductor foundries. We introduce a new method to impose minimum-area and minimum-enclosed-area constraints, and si...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hammond, Alec, Oskooi, Ardavan, Johnson, Steven G, Ralph, Stephen
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
Format: Article
Published: The Optical Society 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/131097
Description
Summary:We present a unified density-based topology-optimization framework that yields integrated photonic designs optimized for manufacturing constraints including all those of commercial semiconductor foundries. We introduce a new method to impose minimum-area and minimum-enclosed-area constraints, and simultaneously adapt previous techniques for minimum linewidth, linespacing, and curvature, all of which are implemented without any additional re-parameterizations. Furthermore, we show how differentiable morphological transforms can be used to produce devices that are robust to over/under-etching while also satisfying manufacturing constraints. We demonstrate our methodology by designing three broadband silicon-photonics devices for nine different foundry-constraint combinations.