Open Innovation

Integrated light modulators using lithium niobate thin films. There are already commercial products (as far as I know only 1 company in the world) that make these modulators. Also, this is not the central goal of the research we do in our lab. However it could be a spinoff if some parts of our research are successful, in particular the proper functioning of the local infrastructure for microfabrication of photonic and opto-electronic devices.

1) An integrated optical environmental or biological sensor based on silicon/SiNx photonics that is more temperature independent.
2) Pulsed and modulated laser by integrating III-V silicon photonics

My PhD research involves the integration of heterostructures of two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) into field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) to create a new approach for the development of photodetectors. Through the integration of heterostructures between 2D materials and quantum dots, it is possible to expand the performance spectrum of the devices, (due to the versatility of bandgap selection through the size and material of the quantum dot), increasing their efficiency and figures of merit. Photodetectors find applications and growth in many different market and technology areas, such as optical telecommunication, photography, thermal sensing, biological sensors, gas detectors, night vision, motion detection, security, and chemical analysis. In recent years, with the increasing consumption of smartphones and self-driving electric cars, the market space filled by photodetectors tends to grow.

In an interaction with the company Samsung we developed a plasmonic reflector that could have its color changed with the application of a voltage. In particular we were able to draw vivid colors in these devices that yielded a scientific paper in the journal ACS Appl. Nano Mater. (“Bright and Vivid Diffractive-Plasmonic Reflective Filters for Color Generation” https://doi.org/10.1021/acsanm.9b02508). Such reflectors could be used to generate color/images and static (or low slew rate) without high energy expenditure (since the color variation is done capacitively). Unfortunately we do not have students who can commit to this project, but if we can – through LIF – we could resume this line of research/development (this is the reason for my negative answer in item #4).

The idea is to develop an algorithm capable of significantly reducing the losses caused by spectral fragmentation in elastic optical networks by using information about the traffic. This information is basically the sizes (in number of slots) of the connections demanded in each route, and the respective arrival rates. This information can be known in advance (simpler case), or captured in real time with machine learning techniques (more realistic case in the so-called “real world”). This research has already generated a PhD Thesis in its preliminary phase, focused on incremental traffic; and is generating another considering dynamic traffic on a single link. At the moment, it is also generating a communication of invention to Inova, but no team is involved yet.