AUGUST 9, 2010 -- Five partner organizations have come together in the BIANCHO (Bismide and Nitride Components for High temperature Operation) project with the goal of reducing power consumption in telecom and datacom networks. The three-year research and development initiative supported will receive €2.190 million through the EU Framework 7 program.

The project will aim to develop new semiconductor materials to enable more energy efficient lasers and other photonic components. The project members also expect the materials to increase tolerance of high operating temperatures.

The five project members bring complementary expertise in epitaxy, structural characterization of materials, device physics, band structure modeling, advanced device fabrication, packaging, and commercialization to the project. They include:

• Tyndall National Institute (Ireland), which will act as project coordinator as well as lend its semiconductor band structure modeling expertise
• Philipps Universitaet Marburg (Germany), focusing on material growth and characterization
• Semiconductor Research Institute (Lithuania), responsible for the design, manufacture and characterization of bismide-based epitaxial structures
• The University of Surrey (UK), which will contribute characterization facilities and modeling expertise
• CIP Technologies (UK), which will focus on commercialization of the project results.

According to the project members, many current photonic components for telecommunications applications have major intrinsic losses, with around 80% of the electrical power used by a laser chip being emitted as waste heat, for example. The presence of this waste heat necessitates the use of thermo-electric coolers and an air-conditioned environment in order to control the device temperature, cascading the energy requirements by more than an order of magnitude.

The energy losses are mainly due to a process known as Auger recombination, a consequence of the band structure of the semiconductor materials used in making components such as semiconductor lasers and optical amplifiers. Over many years, incremental approaches have sought to reduce the consequent inefficiencies without addressing their fundamental cause, say the project members.

BIANCHO proposes a change of approach: To eliminate Auger recombination by manipulating the electronic band structure of the semiconductor materials through the use of novel dilute bismide and dilute nitride alloys of gallium arsenide and indium phosphide. This will enable the creation of more efficient and temperature-tolerant photonic devices that could operate without the power-hungry cooling equipment that today's networks demand, the project members believe.