Ferroelectric PHOtonics ENablIng novel functionalities and enhanced performance neXt generation PICs (PHOENIX)

在PHOENIX，我们创建了下一代紧凑型光子集成电路（PIC），可对光信号进行连续有效的控制。将优化氮化硅（SiN）平台上的钛酸钡（BTO），以实现新功能并生产增强型PIC。新功能源于具有金属-绝缘体转变的材料与外延铁电体的组合。氧化钒（VOx）提供最大的吸收对比度，而钛酸钡（BTO）通过泡克尔斯和光折变效应提供对光信号相位的有效和可编程控制。开发的技术将在高影响力新兴应用的四个用例中展示：1）完全同态加密，2）5G基础设施，3）深度神经网络的推理和4）深度神经网络的训练。该项目有四个主要目标：a）由于VOx和BTO的集成，提供具有增强功能的新颖光子技术，B）提供用于PIC的后续制造的BTO/SiN波导平台以及集成VOx的这种平台的升级版本，其具有改善其性能和可扩展性的潜力，c）建立示范器，以及d）推进理解，通过分子束外延（MBE）在大面积上实现和放大高质量氧化物薄膜。开发的技术的验证将通过对现有代表性系统的基准外推和光电集成路线图来完成。该项目将进行市场分析和技术经济评估，以确定商业模式和开发计划，确保PHOENIX平台的可持续性，以减少颠覆性高科技中小企业的创新上市时间和R&I成本，并最大限度地发挥4个用户案例示范的影响。

In PHOENIX, we create the next generation of compact photonic integrated circuits (PIC) offering a continuous and efficient control over optical signals. A barium titanate (BTO) on silicon nitride (SiN) platform will be optimized to enable novel functionalities and produce enhanced PICs. The novel functionalities stem from a combination of materials having a metal-insulator transition with epitaxial ferroelectrics. Vanadium oxides (VOx) deliver a maximum contrast in absorption while Barium Titanate (BTO) offers an efficient and programmable control of the phase of an optical signal through Pockels and photorefractive effects. The developed technologies will be demonstrated in four uses cases in high-impact emerging applications: 1) fully homomorphic encryption, 2) 5G infrastructure, 3) inference of deep neural networks and 4) training of deep neural networks. The project has four main objectives: a) to provide novel photonic technologies with enhanced functionalities thanks to the integration of VOx and BTO, b) to provide a BTO/SiN waveguide platform for subsequent manufacturing of PICs and an upgraded version of such a platform integrating VOx with the potential to improve their performance and scalability, c) to build up the demonstrators, and d) to advance in the understanding, realization and upscaling of high-quality oxide thin-films by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on large area. The validation of the developed technology will be completed with an extrapolation to benchmark against representative existing systems and a roadmap for photonic-electronic integration. The project will perform a market analysis and a techno-economic evaluation in order to define business models and exploitation plans that ensure the sustainability of the PHOENIX platform to reduce innovation-to market-time and R&I costs for disruptive high-tech SMEs and maximize the impact of the 4 user cases demonstrators