EnTeraPIC - Energy-Efficient Multi-Terabit/s Photonic Interconnects

Objective

The rapid growth of data traffic requires radically new approaches for high-speed data transmission to increase the bandwidth and power efficiency by orders of magnitude. The proposed research aims at novel system and device concepts for low-energy high-capacity optical interconnects in data centers. Data rates of 10 Tbit/s and beyond are envisaged by coherent multicarrier transmission. Parametric frequency conversion in high-Q Kerr-nonlinear resonators will be used to generate broadband combs of frequency-locked optical carriers. Integrated silicon photonic systems will allow for power-efficient multichannel modulation and detection. Novel reconfigurable optical signal processors will avoid excessive digital post-processing and hence reduce overall energy consumption.