Q&A with photonics pioneer, Richard Soref - Part 1

Richard Soref has spent over 50 years researching photonics, contributing groundbreaking work in the areas of liquid crystals, silicon photonics and the broader topic of mid-infrared wavelengths and Group IV photonics. For 27 years he was employed at the Air Force Research Laboratory. He has also worked at the Sperry Research Center, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and is now a research professor at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.

In part 1 of a two-part interview with Gazettabyte, he details his research interests, explains what is meant by Group IV photonics, and discusses why photonics has not matched the semiconductor industry in terms of integration, and how that could change. 

Optics is a seemingly small subset of physics but really optics is a huge field with a deep, variegated nature waiting to be discovered

Richard Soref

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Graphene prototype modulator shown working at 10 Gigabit

• Imec's graphene electro-absorption modulator works at 10 Gigabit-per-second
• The modulator is small and has be shown to be thermally stable
• Much work is required to develop the modulator commercially

Cross-section of the graphene electro-absorption modulator. The imec work was first detailed in a paper at the IEDM conference held in December 2014 in San Francisco. Source: imec

Imec has demonstrated an optical modulator using graphene operating at up to 10 Gigabit. The Belgium nano-electronics centre is exploring graphene - carbon atoms linked in a 2D sheet - as part of its silicon photonics research programme investigating next-generation optical interconnect. Chinese vendor Huawei joined imec's programme late last year.

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Silicon photonics: Q&A with Kotura's CTO

A Q&A with Mehdi Asghari, CTO of silicon photonics start-up, Kotura.  In part one, Asghari talks about a recent IEEE conference that included silicon photonics, the next Ethernet standard, and the merits of silicon photonics for system design.

Part 1

 

"Photons and electrons are like cats and dogs. Electrons are dogs: they behave, they stick by you, they are loyal, they do exactly as you tell them, whereas cats are their own animals and they do what they like. And that is what photons are like."

Mehdi Asghari, CTO of Kotura

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OFC/NFOEC 2012: Technical paper highlights

Source: The Optical Society

Novel technologies, operators' experiences with state-of-the-art optical deployments and technical papers on topics such as next-generation PON and 400 Gigabit and 1 Terabit optical transmission are some of the highlights of the upcoming OFC/NFOEC conference and exhibition, to be held in Los Angeles from March 4-8, 2012. Here is a taste of some of the technical paper highlights.

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