Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

With conventional electronics quickly approaching its theoretical speed and integration limits, much research effort worldwide has been focused on the development of fundamentally new technologies for the next generation of computing devices that can deliver ultrafast digital switching and signal processing speeds. Silicon nanophotonic and nanoplasmonic devices are nanometer-size structures that can confine light strongly in small volumes of matter, leading to enhanced light-matter interactions that can be exploited for novel applications in ultrafast all-optical switching. The objective of our research is to fabricate Si and Si-metal nanostructured devices and experimentally demonstrate their applications for high-speed and low-power digital switching and other signal processing functions. The equipment requested in this proposal will be used to form part of the Ultrafast All-Optical Digital Signal Processing Lab for performing nonlinear optics experiments to demonstrate various digital signal processing operations with the fabricated Si nanophotonic and nanoplasmonic devices. The requested research tools will form an essential component in the training of graduate students and other highly-qualified personnel, and provide students with the necessary practical skills that are in high demand in the photonics, laser and fibre optics communication industries in Canada.