The area is concerned with research activities related to the development of monolithic and hybrid photonic integrated circuits, subsystems and systems. The activities leverage oh the support of the INPHOTEC centre, a state-of-the-art technology centre for the fabrication and package of photonic integrated circuits. In its 500 m2 cleanroom area, the centre hosts the whole suite of equipment and tools required for the manufacturing of a large variety of photonic integrated solutions, from device modelling and design to complete back-end processing and packaging. The research activities, build on several technological platforms (Silicon, Silicon Nitride, Glass, Lithium Niobate on Insulator) and, on the hybrid integration of these platforms with heterogeneous materials such as graphene and III-V semiconductor compounds. The availability of an extensive set of packaging tools supports the translation of these devices to system applications and facilitates industrial collaborations. The fabrication capability is complemented by dedicated software packages for design and modelling, and by state-of-the-art optical laboratories for device and system characterisation.

Specific topics include:

• InP and Silicon Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) for telecom, space and quantum applications
• Integration technologies for heterogeneous photonics circuits
• Photonic integration for neural networks
• High-frequency PICs for microwave photonics

Key Recent Projects

• Industry-Oriented Integrated Photonics and Electronics – FELIX, funded by Tuscany Region;
• Photonic Intgerated Quantum Random Number Generation – QRNG, funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI);
• Secure Space-Earth Quantum Communication – QCommSpaceOne, funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI);
• PhotonHub Europe- funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Grant Agreement n*101016665, in Public Private Partnership with Photonics 21.