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reportFocus Report 2010: Optical Interconnects
8.10 Executive Summary
Nanophotonics describes the study of the behaviour of light at sub-wavelength scales. The purpose of this report is to present nanophotonic technologies and structures that may be used for high performance optical communication devices. A major part of this report focuses on an area of optical communications called optical interconnects that might replace traditional electrical interconnects in the future in many applications.
Optical links have been used for many years in wide area networking and they are finding their way to shorter and shorter links. Short range optical links, for on-chip and chip-to-chip communications, are typically called optical interconnects. There are many physical advantages of using them instead of electrical interconnects. There are still huge challenges related to optical interconnects including component performance and reliability, integration and manufacturing.
This report will mainly focus on different nanostructures that can be used for enhancing the performance of components used in optical interconnects and optical communication systems. The components include transmitters, receivers and optical media such as waveguides. The nanostructures described and assessed in this report are:
- Quantum wells in III-V materials
- Quantum dots in III-V materials
- Quantum wells in Silicon
- Quantum dots in Silicon
- High index contrast structures
- Surface plasmon polaritons
Figure 1, based on interviews and a web-based questionnaire of 28 experts, summarises the technological readiness level (TRL) and technology impact for these 6 nanostructures. Two of the structures assessed, III-V quantum wells and high index contrast structures are already very close to entering the markets whereas other nanostructures will require a significant amount of research and development before they can be commercialised.
Based on expert feedback, some products for long distance communication taking advantage of different nanostructures are already in the market and within a few years commercial board-to-board and chip-to-chip solutions will be available. On-chip optical interconnects are still in a very early stage of development and they will be expected to reach the market in 5-10 years at the earliest.
Figure 1: The current status of selected optical interconnect technologies. III-V quantum wells and high index contrast structures are the most mature technologies and are close to reaching markets, as well as possessing the highest impact. The other technologies are still in the applied or fundamental research phase and do not have a significant impact. TRL scale: 1) fundamental research 2) applied research 3) prototype 4) market entry 5) mature markets. Impact scale: 1) very low 2) low 3) neutral 4) high 5) very high
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Tags: Nanophotonics, quantum dots, ict