University of Ottawa

Purpose

Innovation in nanophotonics has been driven by major advances in nanofabrication. As nanophotonic devices have a nearly limitless design space, equally critical has been the ability to simulate light interaction with complex nanostructures. Advanced nanophotonic design commonly relies on computationally expensive 3D simulations. This project directly addresses the use of AI to assist with the design of photonic components, both for “classical” devices where improvements in performance or size will be sought, as well as design of new devices such as optical phased arrays, which rely on grating couplers as fundamental blocks. Artificial Intelligence will be used to develop efficient and accurate surrogate models for subwavelength grating structures. This will reduce the scale of simulations by a factor of hundreds and enable efficient design of advanced nanophotonic components that require metamaterials.