FlexSensor: Automated measurement software for rapid photonic circuits capturing

This paper introduces the automation measurement software FlexSensor for capturing resonant spectra, an innovative and extensible software program developed explicitly for measuring and evaluating wafer-level Silicon Photonic (SiPh) circuits. Wafer-level Silicon Photonics allows the integration of numerous optical components and structures on a single wafer. However, researchers and engineers need precise and repeatable measurements to characterize them and face significant challenges when dealing with large numbers of complex systems on a single wafer. A toolchain gap hampers the measuring of such highly integrated photonic structures: While the setup necessitates the integration of an optimized hardware and software toolchain, there is neither software nor a standardized way to implement a reproducible measurement routine for a massive set of measurements. FlexSensor allows integration and control of external hardware (tunable lasers, analog–digital converters) and supports measurement data storage and evaluation. The software enables researchers and engineers to efficiently analyze the spectral response of photonic structures and facilitate rapid measuring.