Research Areas

Photonic integrated circuits (PIC) enable the integration of complex optical systems on a very small footprint. Especially silicon photonics allows for a high-density integration and thus completely new, energy-efficient system concepts can be realized.

The goal of this interdisciplinary research group is to develop photonic sensor systems for applications in chemistry, biology, and the life-sciences.

The Teratronic Signal Processing Group specializes in pushing the technological limits of the on-chip signal processing into the Tbit/s regime using high-speed plasmonic modulators and detectors which exploit the high non-linearity and fast response of electro-optic polymers.

The Optical Communications Group aims at Tbit/s data transmission exploiting novel concepts and components. This includes multi-carrier communication systems based on optical frequency combs, higher-order modulation formats as well as signal processing for data communications.

Photonic wire bonds fabricated by 3D lithography enable the seamless combination of various photonic integration platforms, for e.g., to realize high-speed energy-efficient transceivers.

Nanophotonics employs fundamental opto-electronic principles of light-matter interaction to implement novel functionalities on chip scale at lowest footprint, lowest energy consumption and highest operating speed.