Transistor-Like Modulator Helps 'Siliconize' Photonics

摘要

Scientists from Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.) have achieved a major advance using silicon manufacturing processes to create a novel "transistor-like" device that can encode data onto a light beam. The ability to build a fast photonic (fiber optic) modulator from -standard silicon could lead to very low-cost, high-bandwidth fiber-optic connections among PCs, servers and other electronic devices, and eventually inside computers as well. "I like to say our quest is to siliconize photonics―to do what's being done today in photonics using standard CMOS," said Mario Panic-cia, director of silicon photonics research at Intel.