Here are the questions that KC asked Dr. Rosenberg on her AMA:
[–]Perkinamine 1 point 1 day ago
Hi Jessie,
What kind of advanced materials are required for quantum photonic devices? Also, do you see any potential in combining Dr. Offrein’s polymer waveguides with polymer modulators?
Thanks!
permalinkembed
[–]Jessie-RosenbergPhD | Silicon Photonics | IBM TJ Watson Research Center[S] 2 points 14 hours ago
For microwave optical transduction (as mentioned in comments above), we need some nonlinearity that can couple between the microwave and optical domain. Nonlinear optical materials such as lithium niobate or barium titanate would work, there are many other materials in this class as well. You can also use a nonlinear device such as an optomechanical structure, which has a mechanical degree of freedom coupled to the optical mode that provides the nonlinearity - many groups are working along this track also.
Polymers are very interesting as materials for photonics! There is a lot of excellent work being done on polymer modulators. The main challenge there is still efficient poling and material stability, but there is tremendous progress being made.
