Efficient Photonic Devices for Near- and Mid-Infrared Applications

该项目旨在解决当今世界日益重要的许多问题。我们都变得越来越依赖技术，无论是在娱乐、关键领域，如医疗保健，也许最明显的是在通信领域。所有这些技术都需要能源，随着我们对更高性能、更快、更好技术的需求增加，对自然资源的需求也相应增加。光子学（光的使用和操纵）可能是应用最广泛的技术之一，无论是在互联网上高速发送信息，在dvd上读写数据，激光手术等等。光子元件（激光器、发光二极管等）是这项技术的基本组成部分，每年生产数十亿美元（收入在10亿美元以上）。尽管这些设备被广泛使用，但它们的效率往往相对较低，并且由于温度敏感性强而更加复杂，特别是对于在电磁频谱的近红外和中红外区域工作的设备。这在很大程度上阻碍了中红外激光器的广泛应用，例如在环境和医疗传感（许多气体在这些波长被吸收）和其他形式的自由空间光通信中。在近红外波段，运行在光纤最佳传输窗口1.55um的通信激光器效率低下且对温度敏感。因此，这些设备需要额外的控制电子设备，这比激光本身消耗更多的功率！通常情况下，超过90%的能量是这样一个系统被浪费的热量。本提案旨在以协调的方式解决这些问题，因为影响近红外和中红外发射器的核心问题是相同的。这个项目的方法是双重的：(a)努力发展对导致低效率的物理过程的更好理解，并与其他领先的国际团体合作，开发PI预测将强烈抑制此类过程的新半导体材料系统（例如窄带隙量子点系统和相对未开发的半导体合金）；如（In）GaAsBi)和(b)开发新型材料，如稀氮化磷化物，将光子元件直接嵌入主要以硅为基础的电子电路中。在这种电路中以光学方式传输数据可以显著降低计算机的功率（热）耗散。总之，这些方法提供了潜力，既可以通过使用更好的材料节省大量能源，又可以通过集成节省制造成本。该项目的材料和器件将从北美、欧洲和亚洲领先的半导体增长集团获得。在萨里，PI已经建立了独特的实验技术（例如低温和高压系统）来探测光子材料和器件的物理特性，并将使用这些来确定基本材料参数以及这些参数对器件性能的影响。该奖学金将使PI有机会与强大的国际团队合作，共同研究新材料的基本物理特性，以开发高效改进的光子技术，广泛应用于英国工业。

This project aims to address many issues of growing importance in today's world. We are all becoming increasingly technology-dependent, whether for entertainment, critical areas, e.g. healthcare and perhaps most notably for communication. All of these technologies require energy and as our appetite for higher performance, faster and better technology increases, the demand on natural resources increases correspondingly. Photonics (the use and manipulation of light) is perhaps one of the most widely used technologies, whether it be for sending information at high speeds across the internet, for reading/writing data onto DVDs, laser surgery and so on. Photonic components (lasers, light emitting diodes etc.) are the fundamental building blocks of this technology and are produced in their billions annually (with revenues in the multi $1Bs). In spite of the widespread use of these devices, their efficiency is often relatively low, and compounded by a strong temperature sensitivity, particularly for devices operating in the near- and mid-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. This has largely held back the widespread deployment of mid-infrared lasers, for example in environmental and medical sensing (many gases are absorbed at these wavelengths) and other forms of free-space optical communication. In the near-infrared, telecommunications lasers operating in the optical fibre optimum transmission window at 1.55um are both inefficient and temperature sensitive. As a result, these devices require additional control electronics which consume significantly more power than the lasers themselves! Typically, more than 90% of the energy is such a system is wasted as heat.This proposal aims to tackle these issues in a coordinated manner since the core issues influencing near- and mid-infrared emitters is the same. The approach of this project is two-fold: (a) to work to develop a better understanding of the physical processes which give rise to poor efficiencies and to work in collaboration with other leading international groups towards developing new semiconductor materials systems which the PI has predicted will strongly suppress such processes (e.g. narrow band gap quantum dot systems and relatively unexplored semiconductor alloys, such as (In)GaAsBi) and (b) to develop novel materials such as dilute nitride phosphides to embed photonic components directly in electronic circuits, which are primarily silicon based. Routing data optically in such circuits could significantly reduce power (heat) dissipation in computers. Together, these approaches offer the potential to provide both large energy savings due to the use of better materials, and cost savings in manufacture, due to integration.The materials and devices in this project will be obtained from leading semiconductor growth groups in North America, Europe and Asia. At Surrey, the PI has established unique experimental techniques (e.g. low temperature and high pressure systems) to probe the physical properties of photonic materials and devices and will use these to determine both the basic materials parameters and the influence these have on device performance. The fellowship will allow the PI an excellent opportunity to lead a significant effort working together with a strong international team to investigate the fundamental physical characteristics of new materials with the aim of developing high efficiency improved photonic technology for widespread applications of importance to UK industry.