Research summary
We are entering an era of green energy and greater power efficiency—and photonic integration is becoming more and more appealing due to its potential to reduce costs and save power. A photonic integrated circuit is a chip that can contain hundreds of photonic components (those that work with light, or photons). The most outstanding example is modern optical communication networks, where photonic integration is revolutionizing the entire industry.
But further development of optical networks will be impossible without nonlinear photonic circuits—and those are the subject of research by Dr. Ksenia Dolgaleva. As Canada Research Chair in Integrated Photonics, Dolgaleva is working to demonstrate nonlinear integrated optical devices on semi-conductor chips for all-optical signal processing. She and her research team also hope to develop a bank of powerful optical platforms for integrated circuits with nonlinear optics capabilities.