Measurement of ultra-high bandwidth signals with integrated devices

在物理学、生物学和工程学中，用于分析的信号带宽稳步增加。例如，根据思科视觉网络指数预测，2022年连接到互联网的设备数量将是全球人口的三倍。相应地，全球互联网流量在未来五年将增长三倍。像新冠肺炎这样的全球危机进一步推动了网络的数据速率，使其从商业中心向居民区急剧转移。不断增长的数据速率对全球通信网络中的电信号处理和测量提出了更高的要求。目前依赖电子设备的解决方案受到低效能源消耗和散热的限制。在这个项目中，我们开发了基于光子学的高带宽信号测量的替代方案：处理光波而不是电子设备的硅设备。Photonics解决方案可实现超高带宽信号测量，并且不受电磁干扰。我们希望将光子器件与成熟的电子技术相结合，实现完整的信号测量解决方案，支持未来的需求。具体的研究目标包括在时间和频率域测量超高带宽信号的集成设备，其采样率是当前尖端电子示波器的两倍，分辨率比目前的光学光谱仪高一个数量级。这些方法将为体积小、成本低的测量芯片铺平道路，这些芯片能够监测和测量THz范围内的带宽，用于物理、生物和工程领域的不同应用领域，包括传感、光谱和通信。

In physics, biology and engineering the bandwidths of the signals to analyse steadily increase. According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Forecast, the number of devices connected to the internet will be three times the global population in 2022, for instance. Correspondingly, the global internet traffic will increase threefold over the next five years. Worldwide crisis like Covid-19 have additionally pushed the data rates in the networks with a dramatic shift from business centers to residential areas. The increasing data-rates raise the demands on the electrical signal processing and measurement in the global communication networks. Current solutions that rely on electronics are limited by inefficient energy consumption and heat dissipation. In this project, we develop alternative schemes for the measuring of high-bandwidth signals that are based on Photonics: silicon devices that process light waves instead of electronics. Photonics solutions enable ultra-high bandwidth signal measurement and they are immune against electromagnetic interference. We look to combine between photonic devices and mature electronics technology to achieve complete signal measurement solutions, supporting the demands of tomorrow. Specific research objectives include integrated devices for the measurement of ultrahigh-bandwidth signals in the time- and frequency domains with twice the sampling rate of current cutting-edge electronic oscilloscopes and a resolution one order of magnitude higher than current optical spectrometers. These methods will pave the way to small-footprint, low-cost measurement chips, which are able to monitor and measure bandwidths in the THz range for different application fields in physics, biology and engineering including sensing, spectroscopy and communications.