The project GOsPEL coordinated by Delphin Marris-Morini, Professor Université Paris-Sud at C2N, is awarded the Societal impact prize by the French National Research Agency (ANR) 2016.

In the information age, the reduction of the power consumption of information systems, and especially in the data centers will have major impact. The development of high data rate and low power consumption optical links to replace electrical interconnects is among the main challenges in silicon photonics. In this context, the GOsPEL project aimed at the demonstration of new optical integrated platforms based on Ge/SiGe quantum wells. This project tackled both the theoretical and experimental study of physical properties of quantum well structure and the demonstration of high performance photonic devices.

Among the main results, a compact (< 100 µm) and low power consumption (<100 fJ/bit) optical modulator was obtained, and an optical link on a chip was demonstrated. This last result, published in Nature Photonics, showed the potential of these structures as innovative and powerful low power consumption optical platform.

This project was awarded from the Societal impact Prize during the “Rencontres du numérique de l’ANR” on 16-17 November 2016.

• Read more about the project GOsPEL