Innovation, upcoming optical chip that routes broadband data

The first Toadm device is coming – Tunable Optical Add Drop Multiplexer – capable of purely optically selecting and routing the signals in the network nodes, built on a silicon chip of only 2 square millimeters. The demonstration of the first Toadm device is enabling the growth of broadband in the optical networks of the new 5G-6G communication systems and in both classical and quantum intra and inter-datacenter connections. The study has just been published in the prestigious Nature Communications. The work was carried out within the European project Horizon2020 Nebula which aims at the development of high bit-rate photonic components for intra and inter-data center connections and is the result of a cooperation of more than 10 years between the Photonic group Devices and the Innovative Integrated Instrumentation for the Nanoscience (I3N Lab) of the Politecnico di Milano. Italian researchers Francesco Morichetti and Andrea Melloni of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (Deib) of the Politecnico di Milano explain that “it is very complex to carry out these functionality in broadband communication systems, without deteriorating the other signals in transit, and at the same time guaranteeing large volumes, low production costs and low energy consumption. The realized device can be reconfigured in one millionth of a second allowing a dynamic allocation of hundreds of wide band optical signals (200 Gbit / s and over) over a frequency range of over 10,000 GHz. The control of the device is managed by a circuit electronic integrated in CMOS technology also conceived in the laboratories of the Politecnico di Milano. “Photonic chip and electronic chip are made using the same technology as Silicon microelectronics, well established and low cost. Soon it will be possible to realize the whole system in a single chip that handles both electrical and light signals. This is a first step. in this direction “comment Giorgio Ferrari and Marco Sampietro of the Deib I3N Lab.