Ghosh Receives NSF CAREER Award for Novel Microsystems to Advance Integrated Signal Processing
ECE Assistant Professor Siddhartha Ghosh received an NSF CAREER Award for “Semiconductor on Nitride PhoXonic Integrated Circuit (SONIC) Platform for Chip-Scale RF and Optical Signal Processing,” to develop novel microsystems that seamlessly integrate signal processing of multiple domains to advance RF communications and information processing, as well as quantum computing.
Siddhartha Ghosh, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a $540,082 National Science Foundation CAREER Award for “Semiconductor on Nitride PhoXonic Integrated Circuit (SONIC) Platform for Chip-Scale RF and Optical Signal Processing.” He will develop a novel microsystem on-a-chip platform that seamlessly integrates acoustic, optical, and electric fields and is highly configurable to be used in a range of devices and materials.
The innovative technology addresses the different requirements needed on materials and structures to leverage the benefits of the multiple domains integrated in the microsystems. It will reduce costs, enhance performance, and extend radio frequency (RF) communications and information processing capabilities, particularly for optical communications and in quantum computing.
The new microsystems will enable new kinds of radio frequency front-end (RFFE) signal processing devices, which utilize a variety of active and passive modules to transmit and receive RF signals. With the integrated signal processing capability, multiple domains can be manipulated at the same time, resulting in more efficient processing and spectrum utilization.
The technology will develop enhanced functionality in RFFE signal processing through low-loss phononic devices and efficient acoustic wave amplification for applications such as integrated circulators and reconfigurable time-delay synthesizers.
It will also develop approaches to demonstrate efficient acousto-optic modulators, acoustoelectrically-enhanced optomechanical structures and enhanced Brillouin effects in ultra-stable chip-scale lasers.
“While these device classes have all been validated in separate demonstrations, they have never been co-integrated in this manner,” Ghosh says.
The research is also significant to the quantum computing field, as it will enable hybrid quantum systems using phonon buses or microwave-optical conversion for next-generation quantum networks. Distributed quantum processing through microwave-optical transducers will generate new opportunities for addressing major societal problems such as drug discovery and supply chain optimization.
This award builds on the architecture Ghosh is developing through a DARPA Young Faculty Award he received earlier this year to create single-platform microsystems that can incorporate active functionality with passive acoustic wave (AW) devices at radio frequencies.
With this CAREER Award, Ghosh also will present educational opportunities to 50 students a year, from elementary through graduate school, to help make communications and wireless technologies more accessible. Collaborating with the Michael B. Silevitch and the Claire J. Duggan Center for STEM Education, Ghosh will engage students through field trips, high school programs, undergraduate research, and a two-course graduate offering on phononic integrated circuits.
Abstract Source: NSF
Related Story: Engineering professor wants to revolutionize wireless communication by manipulating ‘acoustic waves in solids’