Data centres, self-driving car sensors, and quantum computers are all held back by the same bottleneck: the silicon chips that process light waste too much power. Today’s silicon optical modulators—the components that encode data onto light beams—consume significant energy, limiting the performance of everything from internet infrastructure to environmental monitoring systems. This project aims to solve that by growing a crystal called barium titanate (BTO) directly onto standard silicon chips. BTO has an unusually strong electro-optic effect, meaning a small voltage can produce a large change in how light passes through it. If the team succeeds in depositing high-quality BTO films on silicon using mass-manufacturable techniques, they could build modulators that are both compact and far more energy-efficient than current designs. The work is fundamental materials science—growing the right crystal orientation, composition, and thickness on a silicon platform is a difficult challenge. Success would directly impact data centre energy bills, LiDAR for autonomous vehicles, programmable photonic circuits, and even quantum computing hardware, where low-power light control is essential.
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Several important areas such as data centres, LiDAR, programmable photonic circuits, quantum computing and environmental sensors need much better optical phase shifters and modulators that can reduce power consumption. Here, we propose novel solutions for the realisation of heterogeneous phase shifters and modulators that can Efficient silicon optical modulators (EPICAL) 1. Details transform the field of silicon photonics and make a significant impact in the aforementioned applications. We will investigate the integration of silicon photonics devices with BaTiO3 (BTO) that has one of the largest Pockels coefficients, using mass manufacturable techniques and new design ideas, which will pave the way for the demonstration of compact and low power silicon photonic circuits. The most important aspect of the proposed work is to demonstrate that BTO with large Pockels effects can be grown directly on Si platforms. We will investigate orientation of the films, and their optimum compositions and thicknesses, to demonstrate efficient phase shifters and modulators. The key objectives of the proposal are: - To develop direct and fast growth of relatively thick BTO/BSTO films with large Pockels coefficients on Si platforms. - To investigate variations of BTO/BSTO compositions and their influence on the film quality. - To study the role of dopants for the enhancement the Pockels effect. - To demonstrate efficient hybrid modulators in Si technology using the developed films. - To explore operation of the modulators at longer wavelengths and low temperatures. This proposal brings together experts and leading groups from silicon photonics and perovskite material growth, with complementary expertise and facilities to tackle a very challenging task of the realisation of compact and efficient modulators in silicon.
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