The BIANCHO project was featured in the Financial Times magazine see second article here.
Vision & Aim
BIANCHO will develop photonic components designed to significantly
reduce power consumption at the component and system level in advanced communication systems, thereby saving significant electricity, and enabling more complex integrated photonic devices to enhance the bandwidth by a factor of ten.
Current telecomm components suffer severely from intrinsic losses. Around 80% of electrical power is wasted in a 1.55 µm laser chip as heat. Most systems require thermo-electric coolers and an air-conditioned environment, further increasing the energy budget by over an order of magnitude. The losses are due to Auger recombination in semiconductor lasers and optical amplifiers (SOAs), and due to the temperature dependence of the energy gap in electro-absorption modulators (EAMs).
We propose a radical change, to manipulate the electronic band structure of novel dilute bismide and dilute nitride alloys of GaAs and InP to eliminate Auger recombination and dramatically reduce the temperature dependence of the energy gap. This allows us to research, develop, test and demonstrate uncooled EAMs, highly efficient uncooled lasers and SOAs. These properties are also highly beneficial for high speed photodiodes as required in transceivers.
50% of the power demand in a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) system can be saved by this. Assuming a steady rollout of FTTH over Europe in the years to come, power savings thanks to BIANCHO technology will reach about 3500GWh/year saving €600m. Full FTTH deployment will increase the savings to €1.8b.
As a key European developer of telecomm network components (CIP) forms part of the consortium, wide exploitation is envisaged leading to a reinforced competitive position of Europe in the telecomm component market, providing a clear route to successful exploitation and commercialization of the technology.
BIANCHO brings together leading European groups with complementary expertise in epitaxy, device physics, band structure modelling and advanced design and fabrication.
For further information please contact Mary O'Regan
BIANCHO is fully funded by the EU
