The Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning/McGill University

Published purpose

Digital technologies have ushered in the current digital culture. There is widespread use of smartphones/tablets and the internet to interact with digitized artifacts, enabling more collective and networked forms of culture. Cisco forecasts global IP traffic to surpass 4.8 ZB (of which wireless and mobile traffic will account for > 70%) and the number of devices connected to IP networks to exceed 3 times the global population by 2022. The global IT infrastructure must expand to support this growth and demand in data traffic. Solutions for ultra-high capacity optical interconnections—from long-haul (undersea) to short-reach (data center interconnections)—and optical-wireless (RF) communications are required. The main objective of this project is to explore integrated approaches for optical frequency comb generation, including quantum dot lasers and silicon photonic technologies, for applications in flexible high-capacity optical transport from data center interconnections to long haul transmission to fiber-wireless networks.