Silicon Photonics Confronts the Dangers of Success

Silicon photonics initially emerged to boost the efficiency, scalability, speed, flexibility, and connective capacity of massive data centers. Today, leading photonic transceiver players each report annual run rates of up to 2 million devices. And yet, even as the coronavirus pandemic has caused chaos and uncertainty around the world, the pace of innovation for these devices has accelerated, with new applications sprouting like wildflowers after a rain. Applications for silicon photonics include: • Chip-based lidar, which gives sight to autonomous vehicles. • Quantum computing, in which even the most nonphotonic qubit implementations require electromagnetically quiet and thermally adiabatic photonic interconnects. ...