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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Q&A with Richard Soref - Final Part

In the final part of the interview with Gazettabyte, Richard Soref talks about hybrid and monolithic integration, mid-infrared optics, how his photonics predictions made in a 2006 paper have fared, 2-micron-based optical communications, and his talk at OFC in March.

"In a rosy future, every smart phone, tablet, wrist watch, and hand-held device would contain one of these chemical-medical-physical sensors."

Richard Soref

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