INDUSTRY NEWS
Veeco and imec develop 300mm BTO integration on silicon photonics
FTTH Council Europe backs DNA’s copper switch off plan
Semiconductor equipment manufacturer Veeco and research hub imec have figured out a way to integrate barium titanate (BaTiO3 or BTO) onto standard silicon chips used for photonics, using the same large scale, 300mm manufacturing processes used in modern chip factories. BTO’s unique electro optical properties make it ideal for high speed, low power light modulation in emerging applications such as optical transceivers, quantum computing, LiDAR and AR/VR. Crucially, the ability to integrate barium titanate directly onto 300mm silicon photonics chips enables faster, more efficient optical components for data centres, sensors and advanced communications.
The FTTH Council Europe has endorsed the European Commission’s Digital Networks Act (DNA), notably supporting its proposal to phase out copper networks. The industry association stated that the copper-switch off process strikes the right balance between the need to incentivise the take-up of future-proof networks, the necessity to consider national specificities, and avoiding unintended consequences for consumers. It also stated that it is an important driver for investments and that it will positively contribute to the competitiveness of the EU, supporting the digital transition and the enhancement of the Single Market.
Approaches to integrate BTO have historically struggled to meet the desired cost targets to make it viable for high-volume manufacturing, according to the partnership. The new 300mm platform is designed for the epitaxy of BaTiO3 single crystalline thin films on silicon, available with both solid and hybrid Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) solutions. With the integration of these alternative growth techniques, the system will be capable of BTO-on-Si deposition with improved repeatability and at a lower cost than classical MBE methods. At present, there is no commercially available production-compatible solution for manufacturing these materials, said the partnership.
The council also showed support for the DNA maintaining the Significant Market Power (SMP) process, stating that it is critical to supporting investors and enabling the continued development of sustainable competition, for the benefit of consumers. While The FTTH Council Europe welcomed the idea of harmonised access products, stressed that any remedies must first be shaped around national and market specific realities, which differ widely across countries and segments. It argued that National Regulatory Authorities are best placed to set appropriate SMP obligations where needed, ensuring they reflect the particular conditions of each market.
European scientists achieve ultrafast optical switching using atomically thin materials
A team of physicists at the University of Oldenburg have discovered that nanostructure made of silver and an atomically thin semiconductor layer can be turned into an ultrafast switching mirror device that may function as an optical transistor. The advance could pave the way for optical components that operate up to 10,000 times faster than today’s electronic transistors, offering new possibilities for data processing, sensing, and quantum technologies, according to the research published in Nature Nanotechnology. The team’s goal was to find a material whose reflective properties could be manipulated, or “switched”, within a few femtoseconds using a highly focused laser
beam. One femtosecond is equal to one millionth of a billionth of a second. For their experiments the researchers, led by University of Oldenburg physicist Professor Dr. Christoph Lienau, used an ultra-thin silver “nano-slit array”, into the surface of which they milled a grid of parallel grooves of approximately 45 nanometres (or billionths of a metre) in width and depth. Members of the research team from the University of Cambridge (UK) then applied a monolayer of the semiconductor crystal tungsten disulphide just three atoms thick to the surface of this structure. With this combination, the nanostructure displayed an unusual reaction to light. “Taken separately, neither of
the two materials exhibits a switching effect,” said Lienau. However, when combined in a hybrid nanostructure they react very differently to light, turning into what is known as an “active metamaterial”. Light that hits the nanostructure’s surface can then be stored in a hybrid quantum state known as an exciton-plasmon polariton for around 70 femtoseconds before it is reflected. In this state, which exhibits properties of both light and matter, the light propagates across the surface of the semiconductor layer in the form of plasmon waves, producing a strong interaction with the bound electron-hole pairs of the semiconductor layer, the excitons. The researchers used an external laser pulse to modify
the strength of the interaction between the excitons and plasmon waves. They were already able to change the brightness of the reflected light by up to 10 percent in their first experiments – a surprisingly high value that could potentially be further boosted with optimised materials. Authors of the study, Dr. Daniel Timmer from the University of Oldenburg’s Institute of Physics and Dr. Moritz Gittinger investigated the effect using two- dimensional electronic spectroscopy (2DES). This complex technique makes it possible for scientists to observe quantum physical interactions with a time resolution of just a few femtoseconds, as if they were watching a film.
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| ISSUE 43 | Q1 2026
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