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New tech builds ultralow-loss integrated photonic circuits
Integrated silicon nitride photonic chips with meter-long spiral waveguides. Credit: Jijun He and Junqiu Liu (EPFL).
EPFL scientists have developed ultralow-loss silicon nitride integrated circuits that are central for many photonic devices, such as chip-scale frequency combs, narrow-linewidth lasers, coherent LiDAR, and neuromorphic computing.
Encoding information into light, and transmitting it through optical fibers lies at the core of optical communications. With an incredibly low loss of 0.2 dB/km, optical fibers made from silica have laid the foundations of today’s global telecommunication networks and our information society.
Such ultralow optical loss is equally essential for integrated photonics, which enable the synthesis, processing and detection of optical signals using on-chip waveguides. Today, a number of innovative technologies are based on integrated photonics, including semiconductor lasers,
22 Apr 2021
Silicon nitride-based PICs offer ârecord low optical lossesâ as well as smaller footprints.
Integrated silicon nitride photonic chips with meter-long spiral waveguides. Integrated photonic chips are usually made from silicon that is abundant and has good optical properties. But silicon cannot perform every required function in integrated photonics, so new material platforms have emerged.
One of these is silicon nitride (Si
3N
4), whose exceptionally low optical loss â orders of magnitude lower than that of silicon â has made it the material of choice for applications for which low loss is critical, such as narrow-linewidth lasers, photonic delay lines, and nonlinear photonics.
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Mandi: Indian Institute of Technology Mandi researchers have developed a virus-filtering, self-cleaning and antibacterial material that can be used to make face masks and other PPE equipment. This path breaking development of Dr. Amit Jaiswal, Assistant Professor, School of Basic Sciences, IIT Mandi, along with his research scholars, Mr. Praveen Kumar, Mr. Shounak Roy, and Ms. Ankita Sarkar comes at a time in which it has become imperative to develop techniques to stop the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
Results of this work have recently been published in the prestigious journal of the American Chemical Society – Applied Materials & Interfaces.
Representational image
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi have developed a novel virus-filtering, self-cleaning and antibacterial material that can be used to make and reuse face masks and other PPE equipment.
The new masks can kill microbes, and are solar light-cleanable. It can also filter more than 96 percent of particles that are in the size range of the Covid Virus (120 nanometres), without compromising on the breathability of the fabric, and could thus be a powerful tool to prevent the spread of coronavirus and other microbial infections, according to the study, published in the journal Applied Materials and Interfaces.