Nanophotonics: Manipulating Light on a Nanoscale

Si Nanophotonics enables a platform for monolithic integration of optics and microelectronics, opening the door to a new technology that is free from conventional microelectronics limitations. It can provide low power, high bandwidth, high speed and ultra-small optoelectronic components. Recent results in Si Nanophotonics have shown the ability to guide, filter, bend and split light on Silicon chips using nano-size structures. In this talk I will review the challenges and achievements in the field of Nanophotonics. I will present our recent results demonstrating an "optical solder" for coupling between micron-size fibers and nano-size waveguides. I will also present our results demonstrating the first Si "all-optical gate", enabling all-optical transistors on chip for applications in the field of computing and communications.

 

Scanning electron micrograph of a detail of a high confining Si ring resonator coupled to a waveguide. Inset shows the entire ring structure.

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Speaker Biography:

Michal Lipson completed her B.S., MS and Ph.D. degree in physics in the Technion Israel in 1998. In Dec 1998 she joined the Department of Material Science and Engineering in MIT as a postdoctoral associate. Michal Lipson joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in Cornell University in 2001 as an Assistant Professor. Her research in Cornell involves novel on-chip Nanophotonics devices. She is the inventor of 8 patents on novel micron-size photonic structures for light manipulation and the author of over 30 papers in the major research journals in physics and Optics. Michal Lipson is a member of IEEE, Material Research Society and Optical Society of America.