U.S. Switzerland Cooperative Research: Monolithic High-speed Photoreceivers, Wavelength and Polarization Sensors on Si

Trustees Of Boston University, Boston

Investigators

Abstract

0201582 Unlu This three-year award involves researchers and graduate students at two national centers of photonics research: Boston University's Photonics Center and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology's (Lausanne) new Microelectronics System Laboratory and National Competence Center for Research in Photonics. The project is led by M. Selim Unlu in the US and Yusuf Leblebici and Marc Ilegems in Switzerland. The research is aimed at the fabrication on the same chip of integrated opto-electronic transreceivers, and the development of input and output signals transmitted over a bundle of optical fibers or on a single fiber. This international cooperative program brings together researchers with complementary expertise. Professor Unlu and his students work on design, fabrication and characterization of optoelectronic devices with specific expertise in resonant-cavity enhanced (RCE) photodector structures. These structures will be fabricated using double -SOI silicon process. Silicon is recognized as the material of choice for large-scale integration in electronics and computing. US expertise is complemented by Swiss experience in clock/data recovery (CDR) circuitry development. The investigators propose to integrate RCE and CDR on the same chip. The expected product is a commercially viable single chip for applications in high-speed, optical telecommunications and data transmissions using fiber channels.