Photonic wire bonding is a disruptive technology that solves the problem of efficiently coupling light between best-inbreed integrated photonic chips, providing insertion losses unattainable with other hybrid integration techniques. Enabled by advances in machine vision technology, photonic wire bonding uses two-photon polymerization to print a waveguide with arbitrary 3D geometry for connecting dissimilar integrated waveguides. Unlike butt-coupling hybrid integration approaches, specialized waveguide edge couplers and precise alignment between chips are not required since the photonic wire bond (PWB) is customized to a given pair of waveguides. The machine vision system detects the onchip waveguide facet locations and orientations for accurate placement of the PWB. Mode converters in the PWB efficiently transition light between the dissimilar optical spatial modes. Other hybrid integration approaches, including butt-coupling, flip-chip bonding, direct wafer bonding, and heteroepitaxy cannot achieve comparable insertion losses and are limited in their applicability and throughput. Freedom Photonics (a Luminar company) has demonstrated worldclass coupling losses between best-in-breed photonic platforms using a photonic wire bonding tool from Vanguard Automation. In this paper, we present photonic wire bond results between high performance semiconductor lasers and silicon nitride and lithium niobate waveguides as well as opportunities for prototyping of next generation, highly integrated photonic sub-assemblies.
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