Germany karlsruhe institute of technology (KIT) researchers have successfully developed a light detector to detect optical data path innovation, parking area is less than 100 microns across...

Glass fiber (glass fibers) may be transmission of the information age highway ─ ─ Germany Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT) researchers have successfully developed a light detector to detect optical data path innovation (photo detector), is a glass fiber core components at the receiving end; The results set the new standard for this kind of element size, the researchers say the placeholder area is less than 100 square microns (micrometer), is incorporated into the ideal scheme in IC, and an even more impressive is the data transmission rate.

KIT researchers Sascha Muhlbrandt claimed that the new light detector is the global minimum of optical information transmission components, optical communication system can bring significant performance improvement, because the components can be integrated into a large amount of optical semiconductor components; In the team's experiments, researchers have reached the maximum transmission rate of 40 GBPS, enough to transfer in less than a second time within a DVD the complete video content. Muhlbrandt believes that still has the potential to further increase its throughput: "this plasma photoelectric emission detector (plasmonic internal photoemission detector, PIPED) is ever reach such a high data transfer rate of minimal size detector;" He said the element 100 times smaller than the traditional light detector.

KIT has developed a plasma photoelectric detector, can directly with the silicon optical waveguide coupling, and the size less than 1 micron

(source: KIT)

This light detector of ultra-small size, advantage and single CMOS chip of downstream pretreatment (downstream) preprocessing circuit integration; KIT's Microstructure Technology research Institute (Institute for Microstructure Technology) project coordinator Manfred Kohl said that the innovation of plasma components can support high speed data transmission between computer chips, opening the possibility of a combination of electronic and optical components advantages, to achieve higher data throughput than pure electronic parts.

In a very small space to combined with the optical and electronic, KIT developed light detector using the surface plasma polaron (surface plasmon polariton), can the metal dielectric boundary (metallic - dielectric boundary) electromagnetic wave on the surface of the highly concentrated. This new type plasma converter is based on the direct signal is converted into a metal light wavelength, also known as light emitting (photo emission); To effectively control the light absorption and its conversion to electronic signals, the researchers in titanium - silicon junction (titanium - silicon junction) produce carrier (charge carriers), and in another gold - silicon junction to the restructuring of the high speed detector is achieved through its special geometry ─ ─ between two metal - silicon junction distance less than 100 nanometers.

The researchers believe that the concept of PIPED silicon is not only the future optical data transmission system, the basis of is also a key component of wireless data transmission system; KIT, the light of Research to support high-speed signal processing - electric fusion technology HIRST (Helmholtz International Research School of Teratronics) institute professor Christian Koos, said: "the plasma components that can be applied in high speed wireless data communication, and achieve a terabit per second data transmission rate."