Why are science and industry exploring photonic technologies? What global problem do they solve?

Recent years have seen growing data volumes and computational demands, as well as increasing requirements for data transmission speed. One of the key challenges today is the development of artificial intelligence, which in turn requires processing ever larger amounts of information and rapidly exchanging it. At the same time, demands for energy efficiency are rising: it matters how many resources are needed to perform a computation or transmit data.

As a result, the load on the infrastructure that supports these services – communication networks, data centers, computing systems, power supply, and cooling – is increasing. This infrastructure must be developed further, and the growth in capacity and bandwidth must be accompanied by improvements in efficiency.

However, this creates two problems. First, the production of a number of key infrastructure components, including high-performance chips, is dominated by international companies, and access to their products is limited. Second, despite their speed of information processing, these systems consume enormous amounts of energy. The number of data centers is growing rapidly, and each of them requires megawatts of power. Even in Russia, where energy is abundant, the network infrastructure is reaching its limits: this year, nearly a third of data center construction projects have been stopped. Out of 128 projects, 38 are frozen. In the beginning of the year, a ban on connecting new data centers was considered in Moscow.

Building more and more power stations is not a solution. This means we need to look for another way: to make computations fundamentally more energy-efficient with photonic technologies.

These problems can be solved by improving electronics, system architecture, software and algorithms, or by introducing new data transfer and processing technologies. One of the promising approaches researched at ITMO is photonics.

Photonics enables the transmission, conversion, and processing of information using light. A familiar example is fiber-optic communication. However, the capabilities of photonics also encompass network equipment components, connections within computing systems, and devices capable of performing individual computational operations. It is expected that photonic technologies can reduce energy consumption by several orders of magnitude while simultaneously increasing the speed of information processing and transmission.

How will the Institute of Photonics contribute to the development of research-intensive products?

The university has a strategic focus on integrated and computational photonics for telecom (telecommunication networks and services) and datacom (data exchange at data centers and in computational systems). The demands of these markets define the objectives for developing data transmission and processing infrastructure: increasing bandwidth, improving energy efficiency, ensuring reliability, and reducing operating costs.

As part of this focus, the university is consolidating projects around these market-driven challenges, prioritizing the telecom and datacom sectors. Addressing them requires a combination of diverse technologies, engineering expertise, and fundamental knowledge in fiber and integrated optics, optoelectronics based on novel materials, radiophysics, and computational algorithms.

The institute’s role in this work is to provide expertise and project collaboration in photonics. The institute helps assess technological capabilities and the scientific and technical feasibility of projects and their outcomes, identify the necessary competencies, and establish joint development efforts. By design, the institute participates in those parts of projects that require photonic technologies and their integration with related solutions. Its contribution depends on the specific task at hand, ranging from expert evaluation of an individual component to supporting the organization of interdisciplinary collaborations.

ITMO already has a department focusing on optical technologies, the Research and Educational Center for Photonics and Optical IT. Will the new institute solve altogether new tasks? How is it different from other university faculties?

The Institute of Photonics is primarily a matrix interfaculty platform. Apart from the research and educational center, it includes other highly qualified teams from the Higher School of Engineering and Technology, Faculty of Physics, and the School of Computer Technologies and Control that conduct frontier research relevant for teledatacom. 

There is currently no single architectural paradigm for creating photonic chips and processors. Thus, it’s crucial for specialists from different fields – physicists, engineers, and mathematicians – to join forces. To this end, the institute brings together six interrelated research areas: integrated photonics, computational photonics, optical communication systems, nanophotonics, materials for photonics, and optoelectronics.

It’s something of a toolbox: parts of a single technological chain that make up the final result.

The matrix model means that teams continue working within their departments and join for specific projects, allocating the contributions and tasks to different participants. For them, the institute is the opportunity to quickly find partners and fill expertise gaps; for companies, it’s the opportunity to find partners in photonics at ITMO.

How will the institute change the academic process at ITMO?

Developing a new photonics-related industry calls for specialists who can support the entire cycle of technology creation – from a concept to implementation. Some researchers investigate materials and physical effects, while others design components and systems, develop fabrication processes, conduct testing, or oversee device integration. Each participant must understand their own results and how they relate to the work of the other team members.

That’s why the institute will contribute to the development of a role-based competency model in photonics. Together with industrial partners and educational teams, we are defining what roles are in-demand in the decision-making chain, what tasks each specialist needs to perform, how independent they should be, and what they should be responsible for. At the same time, by integrating frontier research into our educational programs, we can safely assume that our graduates will be in-demand not only now – but will also be able to found a new industry in the future.

Will business play a role in the institute’s development?

Business forms a demand for technologies that the institute uses to launch projects and form market-relevant competencies. We invite industrial partners to collaborate on educational activities and shaping our graduates, as well as in defining the institute’s goals and objectives – including through its supervisory council. The latter includes professors of leading universities and members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as industrial partners.

What are some solutions already developed at the university?

We are working at several levels of readiness and application horizons. In some projects, we already have experience in manufacturing specific engineering products. In others, we are developing new components and devices and charting their path to market. There are also deep-tech developments, where there is a product concept but its new operating principle still needs to be experimentally validated.

For example, the group of Andrey Kulikov at ITMO’s Higher School of Engineering and Technology is developing fiber-optic amplifiers for underwater lines that compensate for optical signal fading during fiber transfer. The team’s other projects are connected to the development of fiber-optic components, signal correction devices, components of coherent optical reflectometers for monitoring communication lines, and optoelectronic transceivers. All of these solutions are important for telecom: they help improve the quality and reliability of data transfer across great distances.

Another example are new integrated devices for the datacom market. We are developing optical interconnects for data centers – these are devices for ultrafast exchange of data between computational infrastructure components. These solutions are set to increase the capacity and lower the energy costs of data transfer. For their further implementation and commercialization, we are building collaborations with major clients in the form of a joint enterprise – a design center in integrated photonics. This format is to connect university research and design with engineering validation, production, testing, and commercial development of products.

Another important project is implemented by the team of Alexey Kokhanovsky as a quick technological initiative. The team is developing a photon computer based on liquid crystal modulators. The product is currently at the stage of an experimental prototype. It is designed for matrix operations used in neural networks and combinatorial optimization tasks; its practical performance characteristics are to be validated on problems provided by industry partners. The prototype has already been assembled, and we are receiving external requests to develop new working prototypes for various types of tasks.

How is fundamental research connected to the development of new products and technological leadership?

To address the challenges of telecom and datacom, we are also betting on emerging segments of the photonics market. Architectures, technological approaches, and product offers are still being developed in the field of integrated devices for data exchange and photonic processors. We see this as an opportunity for Russian teams to develop their own solutions and take leading positions in specific directions.

Therefore, frontier fundamental research is an essential part of our strategy. It yields new material properties and device operating principles that can be used as a basis for original technologies with competitive performance characteristics. The capacity to offer such technologies directly depends on the level of scientific expertise.

Among the results produced this year is one by the team of Dmitry Zhirikhin in topological photonics. This study paves the way to fundamentally new photonic chip designs and ways to control light propagation in all directions. The results were published in Nature Materials.

Another notable project is the ambitious endeavor by Vasily Kravtsov’s group. They are developing technologies related to use of 2D materials in photonic integrated circuits. What’s important for us here is the prospect of developing supercompact, ultrafast optical modulators – elements that control optical signals and make it possible to encode information in it. The results of this study were also published in Nature Materials. 

How do you see the institute in 5, 10, or 15 years?

We view the institute as a platform for effective internal collaboration between different departments working in the field of frontier photonics. The platform helps form a single scientific agenda, synchronize applied projects, and develop educational programs relevant for the industry. 

It’s important for us to make the path from an idea to a verifiable solution clearer; to help teams find the necessary expertise, equipment, and industrial partners; and to enable industrial partners to formulate problems and organize their collaboration with the university. We wish for research results to find applications in new devices and for the experience of developing these devices to enrich research and education.