Problem: The demand for data centers is expected to soar with the adoption of increasingly sophisticated AI tools. Data centers use large amounts of electricity and are estimated to account for between 6 and 12% of total US electricity use by 2028.

 

Silicon photonics are being adopted in higher-end data centers to both decrease energy consumption and increase communication capacity. Optical amplifiers increase the distances over which data is sent, but existing semiconductor and solid-state optical amplifiers have been difficult to integrate on the chip scale.

 

Proposed Solution: An integrated chip-scale optical circuit switch and amplifier is being developed in the lab of Professor Kiyoul Yang. It is expected to support 1Tbps data transmission in the 1.3um communication band, compared to 0.2Tbps for existing silicon photonic data links. The team is currently preparing for the demonstration of a prototype, with the hopes of spinning out a startup based on the technology in the near future.