Wednesday, 25 January, 2023

Proof of Concept Grant to CeNS member Alexander Högele and his team

Physicist Prof. Alexander Högele has already been supported by the European Research Council (ERC) with a Starting Grant and an Advanced Grant. Now he has received a Proof of Concept (PoC) Grant. With this funding, the ERC helps researchers translate their results into practice. The grant is worth 150,000 euros.

Photonic integrated circuits enable trapping of photons, the fundamental particles of light, in a waveguide on a chip to allow their manipulation, similar to electrons in classical integrated circuits. While photonic circuits offer superior performance in speed and energy efficiency, their application in information processing has so far been impeded by their limited programmability. For example, the technologies used to date are poorly suited for implementing large-scale computational hardware.

In his new project RaPPIC (Rapid Programmable Photonic Integrated Circuits), the team of LMU physicists Alexander Högele, Samarth Vadia and Jonathan Förste propose to explore an innovative and efficient phase modulation technology based on atomically thin semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides. It promises to outperform conventional technologies in all key performance metrics realizing programmable photonic integrated circuitry. The implementation of scalable photonic circuits will enable novel use-cases in the area of computing, communication and quantum technologies.

Website of the Högele group