Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Ay F.(Yürütücü), Sevik C., Kosku Perkgöz N.
TÜBİTAK Projesi, 2015 - 2018
Optical communication undeniably plays a crucial part in data transmission. For more than two decades optical fibers have been used for long-haul communication between continents and cities. In the 1990’s this trend was followed by the use of silica optical fibers in local area networks (LAN). Recently, silica fiber arrays have been used for establishing optical links between racks and shelves of electronic equipment. In all the above cases optical transmission has prevailed over electronic links due to its superior bandwidth-distance product and significant cost/performance improvement. The increasing bandwidth requirements and interconnect data rates necessitate the utilization of optics for data transport at ever smaller distances.
Recent market research studies also confirm the significance of the optical interconnects at backplane and inter-chip levels. According to a comprehensive study performed last year, the revenues of the photonics applications in the optical interconnects are expected to be about 520 million USD by 2019, and the revenue projected for 2021 reaches a total sum of 1.02 billion USD.
Leading universities, governmental institutes and prominent companies have been working in this field. Among those are IBM, Intel, Sun Microsystems, Siemens, etc. In spite of this extensive effort a product has not succeeded to the market until now. Investigations on the optical power budget optical backplanes indicate that the optical power in boards is reduced significantly by the coupling and routing dependent losses as well as waveguide propagation loss. This has been suggested to be one of the biggest obstacles in commercialization of the technology. The estimated losses are in the order of 14-25 dB. Therefore, additional signal amplifiers with high refractive index (n>1.6 for dense integration) providing high gain (>3-4 dB/cm) are necessary and of critical importance in order to compensate optical losses.
The goal of the proposed project is to develop novel, high-gain, Si-compatible solid-state optical waveguide amplifiers. The amplifier devices will be obtained by making use of the unique advantages of the Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) technique. The originality of the proposed project lies in the novel wafer scale growth process of Er-doped Al2O3 active waveguide layers on thermally oxidized silicon wafers using atomic layer deposition technique and obtain radically high laterally and vertically localized doping of active ions. There is no reported study of high-concentration active ions resulting in high optical gain values. Our previous experience on material growth and Er-doped Al2O3 active waveguide amplifiers will enable us to transfer and apply the knowledge to develop radically high gain waveguide amplifiers using atomic layer deposition technique. Along with the experimental studies the physical incorporation mechanisms of the active ions into the Al2O3 host matrix will be studied theoretically using density functional theoretical approaches. The experimental and theoretical studies will be implemented in parallel and will provide continues feedback to each other throughout the project. This interrelated approach will ensure the success of the project.
Although there are many fields at which the developed amplifiers can be used, the project main application area targeted in the project is the optical interconnect technology. The technology developed in this project will pave the way for application in devices such as on-chip lasers, gyroscopes and sensors.
The project team’s proficiency and expertise in areas such as theoretical computing, novel thin film growth and device fabrication will provide a productive and synergetic environment of interdisciplinary work which will ensure the success of the project. The experience of the project team will be critical in the realization of the proposed novel, high-gain, optical amplifier devices.