Amplified Silicon Nitride Waveguides for the Data Center

硅光子技术已被确定为数据中心的重要支持技术，因为数据中心架构的性能和能源需求不断增长，以支持视频流，社交媒体和云服务AEPONYX正在构建快速，可调，低功耗的光开关，基于微机电系统和硅和氮化硅光子片上平台的组合。当他们扩大其交换技术以获得更高的性能和容量（增加总传输长度和光子元件的数量）时，所面临的问题之一是信号损耗也成比例地增加。为了在通信链路的接收机端获得足够的信号功率，迫切需要一种低噪声、有效的放大光信号的装置。在这个项目中，我和我的研究团队将利用我们在紧凑型集成稀土掺杂波导放大器方面的专业知识，与行业合作伙伴AEPONYX一起为数据中心提供光放大解决方案。该项目将使AEPONYX在其系统开发路线图上实现飞跃，并显着提高其竞争优势，同时带来有关集成在氮化硅光子平台上的光放大器的设计和性能以及此类放大器在数据中心中的应用的新知识。

Silicon photonics has been identified as a vital enabling technology for the data center as the performance and energy demands on data center architectures are continuously growing to support video streaming, social media and cloud services AEPONYX is building fast, tunable, low-power consumption optical switches based on a combination of micro-electro-mechanical-systems and silicon and silicon nitride photonic on-chip platforms. One of the issues faced as they scale up their switching technology for higher performance and capacity (increasing the overall transmission length and number of photonic elements), is that the signal loss also increases proportionally. To achieve sufficient signal power at the receiver end of the communications link, a low-noise, efficient means of amplifying the optical signal will be urgently required. In this project my research team and I will build on our expertise in compact, integrated rare-earth-doped waveguide amplifiers to provide an optical amplification solution for data centers together with industry partner AEPONYX. This project will allow AEPONYX to leap forward on their systems-development roadmap and significantly increase their competitive advantage, while leading to new knowledge about the design and performance of optical amplifiers integrated on a silicon nitride photonics platform and the application of such amplifiers in the data center.