Development of flexible silicon photonic components for WDM optical networks

硅光子学作为构建光通信应用的光子集成电路的一种经济有效的平台，正在获得广泛的行业认可。特别是，硅光子学提供了与CMOS微电子制造工艺兼容的优势，这允许光子电路与同一芯片上的电子器件无缝集成。尽管硅光子学有很多好处，但由于许多重要的技术挑战仍然存在，硅光子学的全部商业潜力尚未实现。本提案旨在解决柔性硅光子电路发展中的两个重要挑战，即宽带波长可调性和可扩展性，这两者对于增加光学元件和子系统的功能和降低成本和占地面积都很重要。更具体地说，这些问题将通过开发用于波分复用光网络的两个重要组件来解决：多通道复用/解复用电路和快速波长选择电路。该项目的成功成果将有助于加速硅光子学技术在现有和未来光通信网络中的应用。****支持的行业合作伙伴是位于渥太华的华为技术加拿大研究中心。作为世界500强企业，华为在行业创新方面享有盛誉，在利用该项目开发的技术并将其迅速推向市场方面处于有利地位。除了这些对行业合作伙伴的明显好处之外，该项目还有望通过在硅光子学方面的本土专业知识的发展以及在光子学和电信领域对HQP的培训使加拿大受益。******

Silicon photonics is gaining widespread industry acceptance as a cost-effective platform for building photonic integrated circuits for optical communication applications. In particular, silicon photonics offers the advantage of compatibility with the CMOS microelectronic fabrication process, which allows for seamless integration of photonic circuits with electronic devices on the same chip. In spite of its promising benefits, the full commercial potential of silicon photonics has yet to be realized, as a number of important technical challenges still remain. This proposal aims to address two important challenges in the development of flexible silicon photonic circuits, namely, broadband wavelength tunability and scalability, both which are important for increasing the functionality and reducing the cost and footprint of optical components and subsystems. More specifically, these issues will be addressed through the development of two important components for Wavelength Division Multiplexing optical networks: a multi-channel multiplexer/demultiplexer circuit and a fast wavelength selector circuit. The successful outcome of project will help accelerate the adoption of silicon photonics technology into existing and future optical communication networks.****The supporting industry partner is the Canadian Research Centre of Huawei Technologies in Ottawa. As a Fortune 500 company with a reputation as one the top innovators in the industry, Huawei is in an excellent position to exploit the technology developed through this project and facilitate its immediate transfer to the market. Beyond these clear benefits to the industry partner, the project is also expected to benefit Canada through the development of home-grown expertise in silicon photonics and the training of HQP in the photonics and telecom sectors.******