Job description
Are you excited to co-develop a next-generation optical wireless communication system, enhanced by advanced detectors?
Can you bridge the fields of electronic and photonic integration to make advanced light detectors to accelerate wireless communication?
As the demand for wireless communication surges, the transition from 5G to the next generation of technology is imperative. This new phase necessitates a tenfold increase in bit rates, enhanced user capacity, and significantly reduced power consumption. Given that 80% of data traffic is directed indoors, the current reliance on outdoor base stations is proving inadequate. To address this gap, robust indoor infrastructure is essential for seamless wireless access to end users.
With fiber access being pushed closer to the end devices (Fiber to the Room (FttR)), the need for high-speed connections has never been more critical. This opens the door to innovative wireless solutions, particularly at extremely high frequencies, where directional beams and line-of-sight propagation become vital. These advancements are especially pertinent in dense environments, such as airport halls, convention centers, and logistics centers, where autonomous vehicles operate. The complexity and size of indoor optical systems pose challenges in scalability, power consumption, and maintenance. While wireless networks present a viable solution for indoor environments by replacing optical cable connections, current RF wireless infrastructure struggles with spectrum congestion, high power demands, and limited bandwidth. Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) is emerging as a promising research area, offering a cost-effective way to enhance existing RF networks and provide ultra-high data-rate connectivity for the "last mile."
Join us in pioneering the future of indoor wireless communication, where optical wireless links may surpass traditional millimeter-wave radio communications, ensuring efficient and reliable connectivity. If you're passionate about transforming the landscape of wireless technology and excited to embark in the exciting new world of photonics, we invite you to apply for this PhD opportunity!
Information
This project aims to innovate detector design to overcome these limitations and improve performance in indoor optical wireless systems. The proposed project will focus on creating components, in particular integrated photonics-electronics components that can support optical wireless communication for mass-market client devices and pave the way for miniaturization and cost reduction. In the initial stage, the project will model the entire communication chain to understand and optimize the detector and its parameters. In this project, you will focus on developing a suitable solution for integrating photo detectors with the analog front-end. You will work on this solution, ensuring it is scalable, has a wide aperture (to maintain a good signal-to-noise ratio), a wide bandwidth, and avoids mechanically movable components. Nonetheless, it must be able to capture light signals from a range of directions, including distributed MIMO and angular diversity. In this work, you will examine several trade-offs involved in scaling detector arrays, including bandwidth limitations, interconnect considerations, and electronic design (buffers, TIA, etc.). Your work will focus on implementing TIA and buffer circuits in existing advanced semiconductor technologies, such as silicon or III-V. A key challenge in this activity will be to consider the heterogeneous integration (HI) methodology. The consideration of HI for the PD-TIA array system involves integrating a PD array, typically implemented in a III-V technology, such as InP, with a Buffer-TIA array implemented in a high-speed Silicon technology, such as SiGe BiCMOS. In the project, you will have the opportunity to design, fabricate, and measure electronic ICs in either silicon or III-V semiconductor technologies, which will form part of a demonstrator for a PD-Buffer-TIA configuration, thereby validating the requirements of a detector for optical wireless communication applications.
A closely related PhD position will be available soon, in the same project. It will focus more on monolithic integration. In your application, we invite you to elaborate on your experience, course, or project work relevant to analog IC integration in CMOS/Bipolar technologies, design and modeling of photonic systems, the theory of communication systems, and the ability to use design tools to synthesize/simulate circuits, and conduct experimental work. We do not expect you to already have experience in all these fields, but we would like to evaluate how you can develop in these multidisciplinary fields.