UK Silicon Photonics
Lead Research Organisation:
University of St Andrews
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
Silicon Photonics is a field that has seen rapid growth and dramatic changes in the past 5 years. According to the MIT Communications Technology Roadmap, which aims to establish a common architecture platform across market sectors with a potential $20B in annual revenue, silicon photonics is among the top ten emerging technologies. This has in part been a consequence of the recent involvement of large semiconductor companies in the USA such as Intel and IBM, who have realised the enormous potential of the technology, as well as large investment in the field by DARPA in the USA under the Electronic and Photonic Integrated Circuit (EPIC) initiative. Significant investment in the technology has also followed in Japan, Korea, and to a lesser extent in the European Union (IMEC and LETI). The technology offers an opportunity to revolutionise a range of application areas by providing excellent performance at moderate cost due primarily to the fact that silicon is a thoroughly studied material, and unsurpassed in quality of fabrication with very high yield due to decades of investment from the microelectronics industry. The proposed work is a collaboration between 5 UK Universities (Surrey, St. Andrews, Leeds, Warwick and Southampton) with input from the industrial sector both in the UK and the USA. We will target primarily the interconnect applications, as they are receiving the most attention worldwide and have the largest potential for wealth creation, based on the scalability of silicon-based processes. However, we will ensure that our approach is more broadly applicable to other applications. This can be achieved by targeting device functions that are generic, and introducing specificity only when a particular application is targeted. The generic device functions we envisage are as follows: Optical modulation; coupling from fibre to sub-micron silicon waveguides; interfacing of optical signals within sub micron waveguides; optical filtering; optical/electronic integration; optical detection; optical amplification. In each of these areas we propose to design, fabricate, and test devices that will improve the current state of the art. Subsequently we will integrate these optical devices with electronics to further improve the state of the art in optical/electronic integration in silicon.We have included in our list of objectives, benchmark targets for each of our proposed devices to give a clear and unequivocal statement of ambition and intent.We believe we have assembled an excellent consortium to deliver the proposed work, and to enable the UK to compete on an international level. The combination of skills and expertise is unique in the UK and entirely complementary within the consortium. Further, each member of the consortium is recognised as a leading international researcher in their field.The results of this work have the potential to have very significant impact to wealth creation opportunities within the UK and around the world. For example emerging applications such as optical interconnect, both intra-chip, and inter-chip, as well as board to board and rack to rack, and Fibre To The Home for internet and other large bandwidth applications, will require highly cost effective and mass production solutions. Silicon Photonics is a seen as a leading candidate technology in these application areas if suitable performance can be achieved
People |
ORCID iD |
| Thomas Krauss (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Beggs D
(2010)
Slow-light photonic crystal switches and modulators
Beggs DM
(2012)
Ultrafast tilting of the dispersion of a photonic crystal and adiabatic spectral compression of light pulses.
in Physical review letters
Beggs DM
(2012)
Ultrafast tunable optical delay line based on indirect photonic transitions.
in Physical review letters
Blanco-Redondo A
(2016)
Erratum: Pure-quartic solitons.
in Nature communications
Blanco-Redondo A
(2016)
Pure-quartic solitons.
in Nature communications
Castellanos Muñoz M
(2014)
Optically induced indirect photonic transitions in a slow light photonic crystal waveguide.
in Physical review letters
Chunle Xiong
(2015)
Photonic Crystal Waveguide Sources of Photons for Quantum Communication Applications
in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics
Collins M.J.
(2013)
Spatial multiplexing of monolithic silicon heralded single photon sources
in Optics InfoBase Conference Papers
Corcoran B
(2011)
Ultracompact 160 Gbaud all-optical demultiplexing exploiting slow light in an engineered silicon photonic crystal waveguide.
in Optics letters
Corcoran B.
(2011)
Ultra-compact, slow light enhanced, 160Gbaud demultiplexing in a silicon photonic crystal waveguide
in Optics InfoBase Conference Papers
Debnath K
(2013)
Dielectric waveguide vertically coupled to all-silicon photodiodes operating at telecommunication wavelengths
in Applied Physics Letters
Debnath K
(2012)
Cascaded modulator architecture for WDM applications.
in Optics express
Di Falco A
(2012)
Propagation Losses of Slotted Photonic Crystal Waveguides
in IEEE Photonics Journal
Di Falco A
(2008)
Slotted Photonic Crystal Waveguides and Cavities
Faggiani R
(2016)
Lower bound for the spatial extent of localized modes in photonic-crystal waveguides with small random imperfections.
in Scientific reports
Gardes FY
(2009)
High-speed modulation of a compact silicon ring resonator based on a reverse-biased pn diode.
in Optics express
Ha S
(2011)
Slow-light and evanescent modes at interfaces in photonic crystal waveguides: optimal extraction from experimental near-field measurements
in Journal of the Optical Society of America B
He J
(2014)
Degenerate photon-pair generation in an ultracompact silicon photonic crystal waveguide.
in Optics letters
Husko C
(2011)
Ultracompact all-optical XOR logic gate in a slow-light silicon photonic crystal waveguide.
in Optics express
Kampfrath T
(2010)
Ultrafast adiabatic manipulation of slow light in a photonic crystal
in Physical Review A
Li J
(2011)
Four-wave mixing in photonic crystal waveguides: slow light enhancement and limitations.
in Optics express
Li J
(2012)
Four-wave mixing in slow light photonic crystal waveguides with very high group index.
in Optics express
Li J
(2012)
Low loss propagation in slow light photonic crystal waveguides at group indices up to 60
in Photonics and Nanostructures - Fundamentals and Applications
Li K
(2016)
High speed e-beam writing for large area photonic nanostructures - a choice of parameters.
in Scientific reports
Melloni A
(2010)
Tunable Delay Lines in Silicon Photonics: Coupled Resonators and Photonic Crystals, a Comparison
in IEEE Photonics Journal
Melloni A
(2009)
Slow light in coupled ring resonators and PhC: a comparison
Monat C
(2014)
Integrated optical auto-correlator based on third-harmonic generation in a silicon photonic crystal waveguide.
in Nature communications
Monat C
(2010)
Slow Light Enhanced Nonlinear Optics in Silicon Photonic Crystal Waveguides
in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics
Monat C.
(2010)
Slow-light enhanced nonlinear effects in silicon photonic crystal waveguides for optical signal processing
in Technical Digest - 15th OptoElectronics and Communications Conference, OECC2010
O'Faolain L
(2010)
Loss engineered slow light waveguides.
in Optics express
Opheij A
(2013)
Ultracompact (3 µm) silicon slow-light optical modulator.
in Scientific reports
Opheij A.
(2013)
Ultrafast optical modulation using slow light photonic crystal waveguides
in Optics InfoBase Conference Papers
Portalupi SL
(2010)
Planar photonic crystal cavities with far-field optimization for high coupling efficiency and quality factor.
in Optics express
Priolo F
(2014)
Silicon nanostructures for photonics and photovoltaics.
in Nature nanotechnology
Reimer C
(2012)
Mid-infrared photonic crystal waveguides in silicon.
in Optics express
Rey I
(2011)
Scaling of Raman amplification in realistic slow-light photonic crystal waveguides
in Physical Review B
Scullion M
(2012)
Slotted photonic crystals for biosensing applications
Scullion MG
(2013)
Slotted photonic crystal sensors.
in Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
Spurny M
(2010)
Slow light enhanced nonlinear photonic functionalities
Welna K
(2012)
Novel Dispersion-Adapted Photonic Crystal Cavity With Improved Disorder Stability
in IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics
Welna K.
(2015)
High-
Q photonic crystal cavities realised using deep ultraviolet lithography
in ELECTRONICS LETTERS
Xiong C
(2011)
Slow-light enhanced correlated photon pair generation in a silicon photonic crystal waveguide.
in Optics letters
Zhang Y
(2016)
Cross-phase modulation-induced spectral broadening in silicon waveguides.
in Optics express
Zhang Y
(2015)
Non-degenerate two-photon absorption in silicon waveguides: analytical and experimental study.
in Optics express
Zhang Y
(2014)
Phase-sensitive amplification in silicon photonic crystal waveguides.
in Optics letters
| Description | We have established the slow light paradigm as a viable method for making high speed, low power and broadband optical modulators as well as substantially enhancing optical nonlinearities. |
| Exploitation Route | Some of the slow light technology developed in the UKSP project is being prepared for commercialisation through the Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept project "FRONTIER", led by Dr Liam O'Faolain, who was a post-doc on UKSP with Prof TF Krauss. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
| URL | http://sotonfab.co.uk/UKSP/index.html |