The use of Silicon photonics has been clearly identified in all roadmaps (IBM, Intel, ITRS, …) as a means to achieve the most awaited convergence of microelectronics and photonics on a chip by overcoming electrical interconnect limitations in bandwidth and power efficiency. It is even envisaged today that this technology not only will ensure communication between calculation units but also partially replace these units. To implement this paradigm change, it is crucial to meet up with the exigencies for the performance of optoelectronic devices which are extremely high in terms of compactness, power consumption and speed. Novel concepts for laser sources, optical modulators, optical amplifiers and photodetectors need to be invented.
On chip optical amplification is of utmost importance as it enables signal regeneration wherever necessary. Amplifiers are essential for propagation loss compensation, to maintain optical power after several stages of on-chip signal spitting or to boost optical power before detection. Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) have also been noticeably used as nonlinear elements with the view of processing data.
Decreasing both power consumption and footprint of optoelectronic devices has been a long-term goal for nanophotonics integrated on Silicon. In MILLIAMP, we will complete the proof of concept of a novel type of semiconductor optical amplifiers presenting performance in terms of compactness, power consumption and nonlinearity, fulfilling the needs for on chip communications and all-optical neural networks.
The project is part of the PI’s team effort to develop a full nanophotonic platform integrating lasers, amplifiers and photodetector to bring about a revolution in the Information and Communications Technologies industry.
Our objective is to explore the potentiality of our technology for future markets from the technical point of view to the commercial one with the goal to create a spin-off company.
