NSF Award
1347563
Intellectual Merit<br/><br/>This Small-Business ERC Collaborative Opportunity transitioning agile broadband<br/>transmitter for integrated access networks to market will address the challenge of achieving high<br/>bandwidth (100+ Gb/s), low power, low cost wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical<br/>communications links of distances up to 2 km for applications such as data centers and<br/>aggregation networks. These links are necessary for next generation data center and<br/>supercomputing applications that are a focus of the CIAN ERC?s research.<br/>Specifically, this project will improve the lasers in these systems, which drive much of<br/>the cost, performance, and power requirements for the links, to meet current commercial<br/>specifications. The tunable VCSELs offer a 10X reduction in power and cost over conventional<br/>solutions and enable high bandwidth links within data centers that not economically feasible with<br/>current technologies.<br/><br/>Broader Impacts<br/><br/>The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is a drastic reduction in the cost<br/>and energy requirements of optical links inside of data centers and supercomputers. Companies<br/>such as Google, Microsoft and other large data-centric companies have been clamoring for this<br/>type of product in the last year to maintain the rate of growth in their data center facilities.<br/>Present WDM laser array solutions using DFB lasers require 10X the power and 10X the cost of<br/>a VCSEL-based approach and are not economically feasible. Present 850-nm VCSEL-based<br/>links, on the other hand, cannot be made into a WDM source without power-hungry TEC coolers<br/>due to their lack of precise, gridded, wavelength control, limiting the overall link speed. Using a<br/>1550 nm tunable VCSEL solves both the problem of gridded wavelength control and allows the<br/>use of low cost single mode fiber and the developed infrastructure for 1550 nm WDM optical<br/>links. The realization of tunable VCSELs in WDM systems will result in a 10X reduction in<br/>both cost and energy requirements in high-speed optical links for data centers, enabling the<br/>further scaling of computational power for next generation data center and supercomputer<br/>applications.<br/><br/>Besides the technological impact, this collaboration program will offer CIAN students<br/>insight and experience with the real world commercial product development process. The<br/>students will be testing and giving feedback into the product development process, enhancing<br/>their educational experience. The enhanced capabilities of the VCSELs will enable new<br/>applications and enhance CIAN in it?s mission of supporting transparency wherever possible<br/>with flexible wavelength conversion and optical switches, and supporting dynamically<br/>reconfigurable heterogeneous traffic in the network.
