SC300 Silicon Photonics

Sunday, May 16, 2010
10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Bahram Jalali; Univ. of California at Los Angeles, USA
Level: Beginner (no background or minimal training is necessary to understand course material)


Course Description

After dominating the electronics industry for decades, silicon is on the verge of becoming the material of choice for the photonics industry, the traditional stronghold of III-V semiconductors. Stimulated by a series of recent breakthroughs and propelled by increasing investments by governments and the private sector, silicon photonics is now the most active discipline within the field of integrated optics.

The aim of this course is to provide an in-depth understanding of the silicon photonics technology, its unique features and its anticipated impact. It discusses passive devices such as waveguides and wavelength filters, photodetectors, modulators, amplifiers, lasers and wavelength converters. The course will highlight the state of the art in each device category and outline challenges that must be overcome before large-scale commercialization can take place. In particular, for realization of integration with CMOS VLSI, silicon photonics must be compatible with the economics of silicon manufacturing and must operate within thermal constraints of VLSI chips. The impact of silicon photonics will reach beyond optical communication, its traditionally anticipated application. Silicon has excellent linear and nonlinear optical properties in the mid-wave infrared spectrum. These properties, along with silicon’s excellent thermal conductivity and optical damage threshold, open up the possibility for a new class of mid-infrared photonic devices.


Benefits and Learning Objectives

This course should enable you to:

  • Understand unique attributes of the silicon photonics technology.
  • Compare properties of silicon photonics with other integrated optics technologies.
  • Identify main technical challenges that remain on the path to wide scale commercialization.
  • Justify investment in silicon photonics.
  • Define the most promising applications of silicon photonics.

Intended Audience

The intended audience is engineers, engineering managers, graduate students and private equity investors who are interested in research and commercialization of silicon photonics.


Biography

Bahram Jalali is a professor of electrical engineering at University of California at Los Angeles. He is a Fellow of IEEE and OSA. His research interests include silicon photonics and time-wavelength signal processing. He has published more than 350 scientific papers and holds six US patents. He is the 2007 recipient of OSA’s R.W. Wood Prize and was chosen by Scientific American as one of the “50 Leaders Shaping the Future of Technology” in 2005. Jalali serves on the Board of Trustees of the California Science Center. He has received the BridgGate 20 Award for his contributions to the Southern California economy.