Leuven | More than two weeks ago
To design high-performance silicon photonic switches after deep diving into Python programming and the physics behind silicon photonics.
Silicon photonics is the study and application of optical systems by CMOS-compatible fabrication processes, which is the most promising solution to enable bandwidth growth in telecom and datacom systems. For instance, Intel is shipping 100 Gbps silicon photonics optical transceivers in volume for data center applications, Nvidia and TSMC are working on multi-GPU solutions based on silicon photonics, and Samsung plans to implement silicon photonics technology to increase processing speed while reducing power consumption and heat. Imec Optical I/O program, together with our partners, targets optical interconnect scaling for 1cm-1km distances through advancing silicon photonics technology. With our in-house 300 mm CMOS pilot lines, imec Optical I/O program has developed cutting-edge optical devices at wafer scale, including high-performance devices for optical communications at data rates of 50GB/s and beyond.
However, there are increasing demands for not only high data bandwidth but also high-radix optical switches in current AI era. For instance, Google is doing optical circuit switching (OCS) to achieve better performance, lower power, and more flexibility for its AI training cluster. The OCS is constructed with 2D MEMS arrays, lenses, cameras and more in rack-scale. This Ph.D. project aims to develop fully on-chip silicon photonic switches with low-loss actuation by means of Si/III-V carrier based or MEMS-like phase shifters. During this research, the Ph.D. student is expected to design high-performance silicon photonic switches after deep diving into Python programming and the physics behind silicon photonics.
In this research, the Ph.D. student will:
Required background: Photonics, Electronic engineering, Computer Science or equivalent
Type of work: 50% modeling/simulation, 30% experimental, 20% literature
Supervisor: Xin Yin
Co-supervisor: Qingzhong Deng
Daily advisor: Qingzhong Deng
The reference code for this position is 2025-155. Mention this reference code on your application form.