Intel’s Silicon Photonics Advancement Accelerates Future PCs
Intel Labs researchers have made another advance in the field of Silicon Photonics by achieving world-record performance using a silicon-based Avalanche Photodetector (APD) that could lower costs and improve performance as compared to commercially available optical devices. Silicon Photonics is an emerging technology using standard silicon to send and receive optical information among computers and other electronic devices. The technology aims to address future bandwidth needs of data-intensive computing applications such as remote medicine and lifelike 3-D virtual worlds. Pictured below is a close-up of a silicon Avalanche Photodetector chip. In the center is a grid of many individual photodectors with different designs, allowing researchers to test various properties of the devices.
“This research result is another example of how silicon can be used to create very high-performing optical devices,” said Mario Paniccia, Ph.D., Intel Fellow and director of the company’s Photonics Technology Lab. “In addition to optical communication, these silicon-based APDs could also be applied to other areas such as sensing, imaging, quantum cryptography or biological applications.”
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