MATTHEW PEACH GRAPHENE
A faster future for communications:
graphene-based optoelectronics
Graphene was first isolated in 2004 by two researchers at The University of Manchester, Prof Andre Geim and Prof Kostya Novoselov, who together won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering work. Image courtesy of University of Manchester.
The integration of graphene into silicon photonics will have significant benefits for optical communications, believes the European research initiative Graphene Flagship. By Matthew Peach.
machine-to-machine communication and the Internet of Things (IoT). To enable the IoT and the level of information it requires, current silicon photonics has a problem: it needs ten times more energy than we can provide. So, if we want this new, improved internet age, new technological, power-e cient solutions need to be found. This is why the drive to graphene-based optical communication is so important. Over the past few years, optical communications have increased their viability over standard metal-based electronic interconnects. The current silicon-based photodetector used in optical communications has a major issue when it comes to detecting data in the near infrared range, which is the range used for telecommunications. The telecom industry has overcome this problem by integrating germanium absorbers with the standard silicon photonic devices. They
MATTHEW PEACH
R esearchers from the wavelengths. The researchers believe that this development is an important step towards graphene integration in silicon photonics, with consequential benefits for optical communications. The Graphene Flagship has published a paper in the journal NanoLetters, detailing the research, which is based on a collaboration between the University of Cambridge, UK, The Hebrew University, Israel; and John Hopkins University, USA. The Graphene Flagship is a Future and Emerging Technology initiative by the European Commission. With a budget of €1 billion, the Flagship represents a new form of joint, coordinated research on an unprecedented scale, forming Europe’s biggest ever research initiative. The mission of the Flagship is to take graphene out of the academic laboratories, through industry and into society. This aim has been at the forefront of the direction of the Flagship; it focuses on real problem areas where it is believed that graphene will make a real di erence – Graphene Flagship have recently shown how graphene can provide a simple solution for silicon photodetection in the telecommunication
such as in optical communications. Optical communications are increasingly important because they have the potential to solve one of the biggest problems of our information age: energy consumption. Almost everything we do in everyday life consumes information and all of this information is powered by energy. If we want more and more information, we need more and more energy. In the near future, the major consumers of data tra c will be
Graphene based Schottky Photodetector device. Credit: Dr Ilya Goykhman, Cambridge Graphene Centre, University of Cambridg e
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| ISSUE 7 | Q3 2016
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