SUTD – Kenny Yong Keng Ong, George Feng Rong Chen, Juwon Choi, and Dawn T. H. Tan
SUTD scientists developed a novel CMOS-compatible, slow-light-based transmission grating device for the dispersion compensation of high-speed data, significantly lowering data transmission errors and paving the way for on-chip integration.
Associate Professor Tan and her team developed the breakthrough dispersive device and published their findings in the paper ‘Slow-light-based dispersion compensation of high-speed data on a silicon nitride chip’ in Advanced Photonics Research. Their paper and this image was selected as the June issue inside cover of the journal.
Fibre optics is now the fastest and most reliable technology to deliver internet connection. Data is transmitted through fast-travelling pulses of light that bounce off the walls of the fibre cables to allow the signal to travel further with less attenuation. However, fibre data transmission is subject to dispersion, or signal degradation from impairments in the optical fibre. This causes different wavelengths of light to travel at various speeds, spreading the signal over time and causing errors.
Dispersion compensation methods can overcome this problem, with on-chip devices being especially promising as they can be put into the transceivers to increase signal reach. While on-chip dispersive devices exist, none have demonstrated dispersion compensation of high-speed data. This is the gap that researchers from the Photonics Devices and Systems Group of the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), led by Associate Professor Dawn Tan, aimed to close.
You can find more details at https://sutd.edu.sg/Research/Research-News/2023/6/Chip-based-dispersion-compensation-faster-fibre