Omschrijving

Integrated Photonics: Disruptive technology and key enabler for solving societal challenges

Where the 20-th century can be denoted as the age of micro-electronics the 21-st century will be the age of Photonics. Photonic Integrated Circuits are, like micro-electronic circuits 40 years ago, the basis for a next societal revolution. Photonic Integrated Circuits use photons (“particles of light”) as main carriers of information instead of the electrons used in micro-electronic circuits. Photons have physical properties that make them particularly attractive for a wide range of applications: Photons can be used for detailed chemical analysis of gases and liquids (spectroscopy) by making use of the absorption of specific wavelengths of light by atoms in chemical structures, the wave properties of photons can be used for extremely accurate measurement of position, displacement or speed, furthermore photons don’t have mass and are not charged which is making them fast and insensitive to electromagnetic fields.

Photonic integrated circuits can be designed to do an analysis with extreme accuracy and with extreme sensitivity in chips that for example can be integrated in medical instruments or all kinds of devices. Chips can also be designed to do breath analysis, to measure concentrations of specific components in blood, sweat etc or to analyse the results of metabolism in cells. The most imminent application however is in tele- and data communication to reduce the power per bit handled and to increase the frequency of the number of bits handled per second (>1Tb/s/channel in 2020). Due to the rapid growing demand for photonic integrated circuits prices for these devices will decrease significantly where the functionalities of the circuits will extend rapidly similar to what happened with micro-electronic circuits in the past decades.

The presentation will give an overview of the history, state-of-the-art in photonic integrated circuits developments and an outlook on what the technology may bring. A short outline will be given on the ongoing global developments in this field.
Prof.Dr.Ir.Ton Backx is Chairman Institute for Photonic Integration and CEO of Photon Delta
Eindhoven University of Technology


De borrel begint om 18:00 uur en de maaltijd volgt stipt om 19:00 uur.

Aanmelden uiterlijk 9 oktober 2016 vóór 12.00 uur.

Locatie

Bar Brasserie Engels

Stationsplein 45,3013 AK Rotterdam

Organisator

Kring Rotterdam