Silicon photonics integrated circuit design

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***Silicon photonics is an emerging field in optics, whereby CMOS electronics foundries are used to manufacture optical chips, known as photonic integrated circuits (PICs). This program focuses on solving some of the major engineering problems associated with silicon photonics, with the aim of enabling the long-term success of this technology. While the applicant is involved in several specific research and development projects in silicon photonics, this program seeks to identify the common needs for a variety of disciplines (computer communications, optical telecommunications, wireless-photonic systems, sensors) and develop solutions suitable for these applications. *********The major research topics to be pursued in this program, which aim to address many of the existing project challenges, and the anticipated future requirements are: *********1) design methodologies for optical circuits - the electronics industry has developed elaborate design tools over the past 30+ years. Design automation is critical to build circuits containing thousands to billions of transistors. Similarly, silicon photonics technology is rapidly advancing whereby it is now possible to integrated tens to thousands of optical components in a photonic integrated circuit (PIC). An improved design flow is required for sophisticated PIC design. *********2) Components development and optical circuit modelling - there are many components required to build photonic circuits, and we are focusing on building a Library including optical interfaces, high-speed modulators, detectors, optical filters, and suspended optical waveguides for nano-opto mechanical switches and high efficiency thermal tuners. These components need to be designed and optimized, characterized, and circuit models for these components need to be developed. In many cases, there are already excellent performance components available (SiEPIC Library), but the key challenge is to develop compact photonic component models for circuit modelling. *********3) manufacturing issues - one of the major challenges in silicon photonics is that the extremely small optical features lead to a high sensitivity to fabrication variations. Quantifying the manufacturability variations is the first step; next these variations need to be included in the circuit design methodology; finally, methods to build circuits immune to these variations need to be developed. *********4) packaging - a final challenge of silicon photonics, which unless solved will lead to the catastrophic demise of the technology. Not only must low-cost solutions be realized, but packaging needs to be taken into account in the design methodology, to enable the large volume applications such as disposable biosensors and optical communications within computers.