Bright future for Montreal's photonics industry
UU直播 profs set the pace
Montreal's photonics industry is getting a boost, thanks in part to the work of two young UU直播 engineering professors, David Plant and Andrew Kirk. Three years ago their Photonics group, which also now includes Professor Lawrence Chen, was the only Canadian team to receive a major U.S. research contract (the other two North American teams selected were MIT and Stanford), and this month their success in integrating microlasers onto computer chips will be published by the renowned Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
The photonics industry in Montreal - using lightwave technology to move huge amounts of information in everything from satellite dishes to medical scanners - was recently described as "a secret with a future". Despite the lack of fanfare, more than 40 companies are involved, and plans to accelerate the development of the Montreal Photonics Network are receiving widespread support. Graduate and undergraduate students are enrolling at a steady rate as courses are added, research expands and employment opportunities mount.
The UU直播 engineering innovation for which Plant and Kirk are responsible has been to marry photonics with highly integrated electrical chips, thus increasing bandwidth while reducing the amount of electrical power. By combining electrical and optical inputs and outputs, from integrated circuits where electrical connections are used for low data transmission and more sophisticated optics for high-speed connections, the research team expects to improve dramatically the performance of advanced computing and switching systems.
Application of the UU直播 research findings will eventually lead to cheaper components, providing the public with easier access to such things as videos on command, interactive games, and improved teleconferencing. At the same time, the increased capacity provided by the optical advances will enhance the transfer of larger data files. This will benefit such fields as climate modeling, satellite imaging and processing, medical analysis, and large-scale data searches.
With support from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Canadian Institute for Telecommunications Research, as well as several companies like Nortel, Alcatel, BAE Systems and Bragg Photonics, Kirk, Plant and Chen say they now have one of the best equipped laboratories in Canada, a fact they plan to celebrate at an event in May. "We design the silicon, the packaging and the integration of the new application-specific integrated circuits (known as ASICs), and then we work with industrial partners to construct the system based on our own work in the Photonic Systems Labs," says Professor Plant. " The bottom line is that experimental research costs money. We hope more IT firms will invest in photonics, and Montreal will carve out a special niche for itself to rival Ottawa and Quebec City. In fact, we're very optimistic, and we're already seeing an explosion of interest."
Another exciting development is the creation of the new UU直播 Microfabrication Laboratory, which is linked to the CFI-funded Tools for Nanoscience and Technology Centre. This lab will be used to build new micro-optical components and will also provide a location for interdisciplinary research with scientists and engineers from many other departments at UU直播. Andrew Kirk, who is leading photonics research in the microfabrication lab, says "this is where we create the devices required for the future."
The UU直播 Photonics team is now looking at the next horizon, moving into areas in which light is used both to communicate and to conduct signal-processing. "The question we're working on now - the subject of our publication this month - is, can we do more than just transmit, can we actually control the flow by switching and routing it? Our top priority is to design interconnection systems that can be readily assembled and repaired, and perform robustly despite the incredible precision required." Welcome to the brave new world of Photonics, say the researchers!
