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A fully packaged cryogenic optical transmitter directly interfaced with a superconducting chip

Nature Electronics volume 9, pages 78–83 (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

The development of quantum and superconducting computer applications requires high-bandwidth and energy-efficient readout interfaces that can connect superconducting integrated circuits with a room-temperature environment. However, electrical and optical interconnect approaches involve extra amplification stages due to the low outputs of the superconducting circuits, which make them complicated, difficult to scale and a source of heat leakage. Here we describe a single-chip electronic–photonic transmitter that is driven directly by superconducting electronics and is fabricated using a commercial complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor foundry process. A laser-forwarded coherent-link architecture enables the transmitter to be directly driven at 4 K by a superconducting integrated circuit with only millivolt-level voltage swing and at a bit error rate of under 1 × 10−6. The energy efficiency of the link, at a temperature of 4 K and a laser power split ratio of 10/90, is 673 fJ per bit.

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Fig. 1: Single-chip optical interface connecting to a SCE IC.
Fig. 2: Integrated electro-optical transmitter.
Fig. 3: Characterization of devices at cryogenic temperatures.
Fig. 4: Packaged optical transmitter.
Fig. 5: Link experiment.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The computer codes used for analysing the raw measurement data and preparing the figures in the paper can be obtained from the corresponding authors upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This work is funded by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, IARPA through US ARO Grant No. W911NF-19-2-0114 (M.A.P. and V.M.S). We thank the Berkeley Wireless Research and Berkeley Emerging Technologies Centers for support, Ayar Labs for chip fabrication, B. Liu for testing support, D. S. Holmes for reviewing the paper and Hypres Inc. for providing the superconducting chip for testing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Bozhi Yin & Vladimir M. Stojanović

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Photonics Center, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    Hayk Gevorgyan, Deniz Onural, Bohan Zhang, Anatoly Khilo & Miloš A. Popović

Authors
  1. Bozhi Yin
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  2. Hayk Gevorgyan
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  3. Deniz Onural
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  4. Bohan Zhang
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  6. Miloš A. Popović
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  7. Vladimir M. Stojanović
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Contributions

B.Y. designed the CMOS amplifier and performed the chip-level assembly of the electronics and photonics. H.G. designed the modulator. D.O. performed the chip-level assembly of the photonics regions used in the link demonstration. B.Z. designed the grating couplers. A.K. performed an early analysis of the cryogenic modulator. B.Y., H.G. and D.O. contributed to chip verification and testing. M.A.P. and V.M.S. supervised the project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Bozhi Yin, Miloš A. Popović or Vladimir M. Stojanović.

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Competing interests

H.G., A.K., M.A.P. and V.M.S. are involved in developing silicon photonic interconnect technologies at Ayar Labs. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Electronics thanks Fabio Sebastiano, Nobuyuki Yoshikawa and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Sections 1–6, Figs. 1–20 and Table 1.

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Yin, B., Gevorgyan, H., Onural, D. et al. A fully packaged cryogenic optical transmitter directly interfaced with a superconducting chip. Nat Electron 9, 78–83 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-025-01505-z

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