Next generation silicon photonic integrated circuits

计算和通信系统性能的未来增长受到电子技术的阻碍，其中绝大多数硬件都是在电子技术上实现的。电子技术正被推向其物理极限，随着性能的进一步提升，功耗也变得越来越成问题。用光子学取代电子功能可以提供许多优点，但是光子技术的成本是其采用的障碍。硅光子技术被广泛认为是解决方案，因为它的CMOS兼容性提供了一条低成本制造的途径。然而，其性能、灵活性以及以其当前形式集成到此类系统中的密度是不够的。该项目将开创硅光子Mach-Zehnder干涉仪的新实现，有可能显着提高硅光子集成电路的能力，并彻底改变未来的计算系统。该项目工作将首先涉及基于使用商业和内部开发的建模软件相结合进行的模拟的设备设计的开发。这些设备的制造将使用位于南安普顿的世界级学术洁净室综合体进行。最后，器件特性将在我们最先进的硅光子学实验室进行。

Future growth in the performance of computing and communication systems is hindered by the electronic technology upon which the vast majority of its hardware is realised. Electronic technology is being pushed ever closer to its physical limitations and as performance is pushed further, power consumption is also becoming increasingly problematic. Replacing electronic functionality with photonics can offer many advantages, however the cost of photonic technology is barrier to its uptake. Silicon photonics technology is widely seen as the solution, owing to its CMOS compatibility that offers a route to low cost manufacturing. The performance, flexibility and how densely it can integrated into such systems in its current form is however not sufficient. This project will pioneer a new implementations of the silicon photonic Mach-Zehnder interferometers that have the potential to significantly improve the capability of silicon photonic integrated circuits and revolutionise future compute systems. The project work will first involve the development of device designs based upon simulations performed using a combination of commercial and in-house developed modelling software. Fabrication of the devices will then be carried out using the world-class academic cleanroom complex in Southampton. Finally, device characterisation will performed in our state of the art silicon photonics laboratories.