Silicon photonic devices for ultra-high-capacity coherent optical transmissions

Over the past decades, we have witnessed an incredible increase in the Internet traffic driven by millions of new users and numerous emerging online applications. Almost 90% of the data in the world today was created in the last two years. This tremendous growth has spurred a rapid evolution of optical communication technology for higher data transmission capacity. Large-scale integrated circuits are a must-have technology for next-generation optical communications systems. The aim of this project is to develop an integrated solution for ultra-high-capacity optical transmissions, using a disruptive technology, namely, silicon photonics that applies the standard semiconductor process used for microprocessors. To achieve this goal, we will examine both various strategies for broadband optical signal generation and explore advanced signal processing in both digital and optical domains to push the system performance.