OPINION: SYDNEY NANOSCIENCE HUB
A new era in Australian photonics
With the opening of Australia’s first nanoscience research centre in April, Professor Ben Eggleton, leader of the Nanoscale Photonic Circuits Programme at the University of Sydney, and director of the Australian Research Council Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), discusses the centre’s activities in developing photonic integrated circuits
T
he 21st century will be the century of photonics and nanotechnology – nanophotonics – which
deals with the study of the behaviour of light on the nanometre scale, and of the interaction of nanometre-scale objects with light.
The new Australian Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology (AINST) at the University of Sydney will ensure that Australia is at the forefront of this domain of nanophotonics. Researchers at the institute are already working on new technologies including light-powered chips for computers and smartphones, unhackable communication using individual photons of light, and high capacity wireless networks using microwave photonic processors on silicon chips. They’re building on strong foundations. The Australian photonics ecosystem is healthy, with a track record in creating and commercialising photonics technologies that have been widely deployed in telecommunications networks around the world, and are now being developed for applications in healthcare and security.
Collaborations between Australian universities and companies such as Finisar Australia have created products and significant business opportunities that are employing our graduates.
A new entrepreneurial culture is translating our research into real world outcomes through various spin-off companies that have been formed or are being incubated, such as Miriad Technologies from the
28 ELECTRO OPTICS l JUNE 2016
University of Sydney and Hotlight Systems from the ANU. Now, nanophotonics has a new national home, with the opening in April of the Aus$150 million Sydney Nanoscience Hub, headquarters for the Australian Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology. The Hub has a remarkable suite of facilities that enables researchers to take their ideas from the laboratory and rapidly develop and test them, including: l Floating research laboratory floors built on a concrete slab that is decoupled from the walls, to create an incredibly stable environment with low vibrations for high- precision measurements;
We want
to build a truly photonic chip that will essentially put the entire optical network onto a chip the size of a thumbnail
l Electromagnetic shielding in research laboratories designed to suppress unwanted interference from outside the lab; and
l Special air conditioning in the research laboratories designed to keep room temperatures stable to within 0.1 degree by replacing all air in the room once every minute. The co-location of labs with the clean room facility will ensure we
Professor Ben Eggleton
have a closed loop for designing, fabricating and characterising nanophotonics devices, which has not been possible. The combination of the specially designed laboratories with the clean room facility that will house an end-to-end nanolithography facility is unique in Australia. The facility will also provide prototyping capabilities that will allow researchers to create robust prototypes that can be evaluated by end-users and form the basis of new commercialisation opportunities. The Sydney Nanoscience Hub will bring together leading edge researchers with industry and end-users in an entrepreneurial space that will inspire students and early career researchers.
The evolution of photonics Researchers brought together at the Hub are already working on a new optical processing technology based on nanophotonics. This research is being undertaken by the CUDOS ARC Centre of Excellence, which is headquartered at the Sydney
Nanoscience Hub at the University of Sydney with nodes at ANU, RMIT University, Macquarie University, Monash University, Swinburne University and UTS.
At CUDOS, we want to take the next step in the evolution of this technology. We want to build a truly photonic chip that will essentially put the entire optical network onto a chip the size of a thumbnail.
By doing this, we can leverage the massive semiconductor industry to harness the processing power of light on a length scale that can be mass produced and integrated into smart devices.
Fortunately, silicon – which is the basis of microelectronics – is compatible with photonics. Most silicon chips today, such as the one in a computer and smartphone, use electrons to transmit information and perform computations. The trick has been getting these chips to work with light as well as electrons. We now can build photonic circuits into the same silicon,
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