Development of flexible silicon photonic components for WDM optical networks

硅光电子作为制造光通信应用的光子集成电路的高性价比平台，正得到业界的广泛认可。特别是，硅光子学提供了与CMOS微电子制造工艺兼容的优势，允许在同一芯片上无缝集成光子电路和电子器件。尽管硅光子学的好处很有希望，但它的全部商业潜力尚未实现，因为仍然存在许多重要的技术挑战。这一建议旨在解决柔性硅光子电路发展中的两个重要挑战，即宽带波长可调谐性和可扩展性，这两者对于增加光学组件和子系统的功能、降低成本和占地面积都是重要的。更具体地说，这些问题将通过波分复用光网络的两个重要组件的开发来解决：多通道复用器/解复用器电路和快速波长选择器电路。该项目的成功成果将有助于加快将硅光电子技术应用到现有和未来的光通信网络中。支持该项目的行业合作伙伴是渥太华的华为技术加拿大研究中心。作为一家拥有行业顶级创新者声誉的财富500强公司，华为处于有利地位，可以利用通过该项目开发的技术，并促进其立即转移到市场。除了给行业合作伙伴带来这些明显的好处外，预计该项目还将通过发展本土的硅光子学专业知识以及培训光子学和电信部门的HQP来使加拿大受益。

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.