Aeluma Addresses How Silicon Photonics with Quantum Dot Lasers Help Scale-Up Optical Interconnect Technology
Laser Focus World article by Aeluma Principal Scientist, Bei Shi, Ph.D., discusses the emergence of silicon photonics that integrate quantum dot optical gain to meet the demand of optical interconnects for AI infrastructure.
As the world continues to advance in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC), the demand for faster, more efficient data transfer is escalating. AI workloads and data-heavy applications require high-bandwidth, low-latency, and energy-efficient optical interconnects to support communication between computing systems. Enter silicon photonics—a technology that's rapidly gaining traction in the industry as the solution to these growing demands.
However, despite its tremendous progress, silicon photonics faces one major hurdle: integrating high-performance lasers and optical gain directly on the chip. Addressing this challenge is key to unlocking its full potential for data-intensive applications.
Bei Shi, Ph.D. outlines in a Laser Focus World article how the scalability of metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD)-grown quantum dot (QD) lasers may address the growing demand for high-bandwidth, low-latency, and energy-efficient optical interconnects for AI and HPC applications. Modern AI workloads require massive data transfer for intra- and inter-data center communications, pushing traditional electronic interconnects beyond their fundamental limits. Silicon photonics with integrated QD optical gain provides a path to scale optical interconnect technology for next-generation systems.
Click here to read the full article featured in Laser Focus World magazine.