Roger Helkey Ph.D. of UCSB - Vice Director, Institute of Energy Efficiency & AIM

Photonics can reduce energy consumption in information processing and communications while simultaneously increasing the interconnect bandwidth density. The energy consumption in data centers is shifting from logic operations to interconnect energies. Without the prospect of substantial reduction in energy per bit communicated, the exponential growth of our use of information is limited. The use of optical interconnects fundamentally addresses both interconnect energy and bandwidth density, and is the only scalable solution to this problem. With the use of photonic integration and fiber optics, and the elimination of electrical line charging dissipation, we can save power by transmitting data from  1 mm to  1 km with the same energy (20 fJ/bit) and simplicity as local electrical wires on chip. A focus of our research is on using quantum dot (QD) lasers and integration on silicon for  lower threshold and higher efficiency sources, higher temperature operation, isolator free operation, and superior mode locking capability.  A recent example includes a 4.1 Tbps, 60 wavelength, 32 Gbaud PAM-4 transmitter using a single mode locked quantum dot laser.

Biography:

Roger Helkey is West Coast Associate Director of the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics). His research interests include silicon photonics and energy efficiency. He has a BS in Engineering from Caltech, and Ph.D. in Optoelectronics from UC Santa Barbara. He spent 15 years at Calient Networks, developing optical switching as a low-power alternative to electrical switching for data center and telecommunication applications. He is a Fellow of the OSA and Senior Member of the IEEE. He has published four book chapters, 47 journal papers, and received 42 patents.

Address:United States