Achievement

As part of the Cornell Nanophotonics Group, IGERT Fellow Nicholas Sherwood investigated the physics, fabrication and possible applications of nanoscale photonic structures. The use of light for data transport and manipulation greatly reduces size and power consumption (as compared to equivalent electronic devices) while increasing speed and data bandwidth. The devices are fabricated on silicon substrates with CMOS-compatible processes to allow simple integration with current electronics and fabrication facilities. Some researched applications include high speed light modulation, switching, dense wavelength division multiplexing/demultiplexing (DWDM) and routing. First-authored published work includes a new CMOS-based process for creating optical waveguides alongside current electronics and an on-chip optical networking router design for future multi-core processors systems.