We are at the witness of revolutionary change in communication and microsystems technologies, combining photonics and electronics in one platform. By combining large-scale photonic integration with large-scale electronic integration, whole new types of system-on-chip will emerge in the coming years. Electronic-photonic circuits will play a ubiquitous role worldwide, affecting areas such as high-speed communications for mobile devices (smartphones, tablets), optical communications in computers and data centres, sensor systems, and medical applications. We can expect the earlier effects to emerge in telecommunications, data centres and high-performance computing, with the technology eventually migrating into higher-volume, shorter-reach consumer applications. The purpose of this course is to introduce basic knowledge of integrated photonics technology. Students will get familiar with the main principles of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) operation. This includes PIC fabrication, modelling, and characterization.
Course contents:
- Introduction to integrated photonics, application overview.
- PIC material platforms and fabrication.
- Light sources, optical waveguides, resonators, filters, electro-optic modulators, photodetectors integration in to the PIC platform.
- Optical fibre to-chip interfaces.
- Non-linear optical effects in PICs.
- Practical and experimental works in analogue radio-over-fibre system characterizations in a teaching-scientific laboratory.
