The ability to achieve rare-earth gain in integrated photonic circuits has the potential to transform integrated photonics; it could enable wideband gain covering the entire telecommunication channels, allow for very low noise amplification, and enable simultaneous amplification of multiple channels –a long-standing challenge in itself. However, the much lower gain coefficient of rare-earth ions compared to III-V semiconductors requires the development of photonic circuits with ultra-low optical losses and long waveguides to achieve practical output powers.
Recently, using an ultralow-loss silicon nitride (Si3N4) photonic integrated circuit up to 0.5 meters in length, and using ion implantation of Erbium, it has been possible to build an optical Erbium amplifier on a photonic device, providing 30 dB net gain in the optical communication C-band, and an output power of >140 mW on chip. This performance is on par with state-of-the-art commercial , high-end EDFAs.
The objective of the MAGNIFY project is to transition photonic integrated circuit-based Erbium-doped waveguide amplifiers (EDWA) from a laboratory prototype to a demonstrator, which will be used for early access demonstrator studies with telecommunication companies and enable iterative feedback. In addition to technology maturation – which will be carried out in the areas of coherent communications and microwave photonics – the aim is to develop the basis for commercialization.
EDWAs address the emerging bottleneck of compact, high-power, and cost-effective solutions for applications in mega-datacenters and deep-sea optical links, where space constraints severely limit the scaling of more fiber channels. The range of applications where EDWA can be used includes traditional areas where EDFAs are deployed as well as emerging new application domains. The domains where EDWA can be used as the amplifier of choice include line cards for data center infrastructure, radio frequency over fiber for 5/6G networks, free-space satellite communications, deep sea amplifiers for optical repeaters, coherent LiDAR.
