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，其绝大多数硬件都是在电子技术上实现的。电子技术正越来越接近其物理极限，随着性能的进一步提高，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势，但光子技术的成本是其普及的障碍。硅光电子技术被广泛视为解决方案，因为它与CMOS兼容，提供了一条通往低成本制造的途径。然而，性能、灵活性以及它可以以目前的形式密集地集成到这些系统中是不够的。该项目将开创硅光子马赫-曾德尔干涉仪的新实现，有可能显著提高硅光子集成电路的能力，并彻底改变未来的计算系统。该项目的工作将首先涉及根据使用商业和内部开发的建模软件进行的模拟进行的设备设计的开发。然后，这些设备的制造将使用位于南安普敦的世界级学术洁净室综合体进行。最后，我们将在我们最先进的硅光子学实验室中进行器件表征。

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.