Techxplore.com July 3, 2020
To address the challenge of increasing data rates an international team of researchers (Switzerland, Germany, USA- University of Washington, Israel, Greece) has developed a monolithically integrated electro-optical transmitter that can achieve symbol rates beyond 100 GBd. They combined advanced bipolar CMOS with silicon plasmonics, and addressed key challenges in monolithic integration through co-design of the electronic and plasmonic layers, including thermal design, packaging, and a nonlinear organic electro-optic material. They demonstrated their technique by developing two modulator concepts—an ultra-compact plasmonic modulator and a silicon-plasmonic modulator with photonic routing—both directly processed onto the bipolar CMOS electronics. The findings can pave the way for faster data transmission in optical communication networks of the future…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE 1 , 2
The combination of electronics and plasmonics on a single chip, light signals can be amplified, and data can be transmitted faster. Credit: IEF/Springer Nature Ltd.