Photonics to boost telecoms networks

Ultra fast telecommunications networks that transfer information at the speed of light are a step closer to becoming a reality thanks to new research from Swinburne University of Technology.

In a paper published in the Advanced Materials journal, Swinburne researchers have demonstrated how nonlinear nanophotonics principles can be applied to telecommunications structures to dramatically improve their speed and efficiency.

Lead author, Swinburne University’s Dr Baohua Jia, said that the researchers’ new technique has the potential to make telecommunications networks up to 100 times faster than current electron-based networks.   

“Through harnessing the nonlinear effect – where the optical density of thin films changes according to applied light intensity – this latest research has the potential to dramatically improve signal processing, signal regeneration and switching in the telecommunications industry,” she said. 

The paper describes how the researchers have applied a two photon polymerisation (2PP) technique, currently widely used to fabricate photonic devices, to develop 3D photonic nanostructures from thin nonlinear films consisting of a photosensitive polymer and quantum dots. 

The quantum dots, which are tiny nanoparticles that enable giant nonlinearity, greatly improve processing and switching speeds and reduce power consumption. 

This breakthrough is an important step in a nation-wide collaborative project, involving six universities and 100 researchers, that is striving to develop a ‘photonic chip’.  

Rather than sending electrons along copper wires at speeds of up to one gigabyte per second, the photonic chip would use optical technology to transfer information at the speed of light.  

According to Director of Swinburne’s Centre for Micro-Photonics Professor Min Gu the photonic chip would have the potential to replace many electronic processing functions in optical communications systems. 

Professor Gu, who is leading Swinburne’s contribution to the collaborative project, is working on extending the photonic chip platform into the third dimension – a move that would give it more functionality and the ability to transfer more data. 

“This would involve creating an artificial three-dimensional crystal – known as a ‘photonic crystal’ out of polymer, which would be the equivalent of a semi-conductor for electrons,” he said. To achieve this, the researchers must be able to embed material such as quantum dots into the crystal’s structure to harness ultra-high nonlinearity, a technique demonstrated in their latest paper. 

The paper, by Dr Baohua Jia, Dr Dario Buso, Dr Joel van Embden, Dr Jiafang Li and Professor Min Gu, appears as the lead article in the latest edition of Advanced Materials.