Richard Soref: The new frontiers of silicon photonics

Silicon photonics luminaries series

Interview 4: Professor Richard Soref

John Bowers acknowledges him with ‘kicking off’ silicon photonics some 30 years ago, while Andrew Rickman refers to him as the ‘founding father of silicon photonics’. An interview with Richard Soref. 

It was fibre-optic communications that started Professor Richard Soref on the path to silicon photonics.

“In 1985, the only photonic chip that could interface to fibre was the III-V semiconductor chip,” says Soref. He wondered if an elemental chip such as silicon could be used, and whether it might even do a better job. He had read in a textbook that silicon is relatively transparent at the 1.30-micron and 1.55-micron wavelengths used for telecom and it inspired him to look at silicon as a material for optical waveguides.

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Imec gears up for the Internet of Things economy

Luc Van den hove is talking in the darkened ballroom in a hotel next to the brilliantly sunlit marina in Herzliya.

It is the imec's CEO's first trip to Israel and around us the room is being prepared for an afternoon of presentations the Belgium nanoelectronics research centre will give on its work in such areas as the Internet of Things and 5G wireless to an audience of Israeli start-ups and entrepreneurs.

Luc Van den hoveImec announced in February its plan to merge with iMinds, a Belgium research centre specialising in systems software and security, a move that will add 1,000 staff to imec's 2,500 researchers.

At first glance, the world-renown semiconductor process technology R&D centre joining forces with a systems house is a surprising move. But for Van den hove, it is a natural development as the company continues to grow from its technology origins to include systems-based research.

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