Photonic interconnect layer on silicon / Ultra low power Photonic Ics for optical interconnects sand communication networks

Future high performance microprocessors will be confronted with a bottleneck on the datacommunication level: classical electrical interconnects will no longer suffice. To overcome this, this project will investigate an optical interconnect layer for on-chip communication. The most important component in the source, a nanolaser with minimal power consumption.
- We aim the developing new device concepts for micro-lasers, detectors, switches and modulators with ultra-low power consumption and floor print. We focus on integrating novel materials such as colloidal quantum dots, graphene, semiconducting oxides and others toghether with silicon photonic circuits in such a way that the overlap between optical field, electrical control signals and the active material is maximised. Next to this main focus we will also look at more classical devices for telecom applications and continue our work in optomechanics.