On 16th September 2025, Assistant Professor Yuto Miyatake, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Systems, received SSDM Young Researcher Award.
SSDM Young Researcher Award
The International Conference on Solid State Devices and Materials (SSDM) is a long-established international conference regarding science and technology in the field of devices and materials, and this year marks its 57th edition. The SSDM Young Researcher Award is presented to the first author, aged 33 or younger, of an outstanding paper presented at the previous year’s SSDM.
About awarded research
Title: Experimental Demonstration of Compact, Low-loss, and Broadband 2×2 Si Optical Coupler Designed by CMA-ES
This presentation focuses on the structural optimization of a 2×2 optical coupler, which is one of the key passive components in silicon photonics that has been attracting increasing attention in recent years. By employing a unique design approach based on an optimization algorithm called CMA-ES, we successfully optimized the device structure and experimentally demonstrated the highest performance in the world within an extremely compact device footprint. The results of this study not only contribute to the scaling up of photonic integrated circuits through miniaturization and improvement of building blocks, but also propose a design method that is applicable to a wide range of components across various integrated photonics platforms.
Your impression & future plan
I am truly honored to receive this excellent award. This research, in particular, stems from the very first project I worked on as an undergraduate student, and I am delighted that the continuous accumulation of our efforts has led to this distinguished recognition. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors and to all those with whom I have had valuable discussions. Moving forward, I will continue to challenge myself in exploring new frontiers in the field of silicon photonics, with the aim of realizing the seamless fusion of photonics and electronics.
Gengyu Li, Department of Mechanical Engineering (M2: at the time), Professor Yuji Suzuki and Lecturer Minhyeok Lee received Best Paper Award, Combustion Society of Japan
