11
A super-fast “light switch” for future cars and computers
Switching light beams quickly is important in many technological applications. Researchers at ETH have now developed an “electro-opto-mechanical” switch for light beams that is considerably smaller and faster than current models. This is relevant for applications such as self-driving cars and optical quantum technologies.
Plasmonic modulators enable unprecedented transmitter performance for future data centers
Researchers of the Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF) at ETH Zürich and collaborators presented new solutions for intra-datacenter communication enabled by plasmonic modulators. In two post-deadline contributions at the 45th European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC 2019), plasmonic modulators enabled the first monolithic transmitter operating beyond 100 GBd and a world-record performance of 222 GBd in a short-reach transmission scenario.