PhD in Neuromorphic Photonics for Event-Driven Sensing via Heterogeneous Integration

Are you inspired by developing the next generation of intelligent photonic chips? Join us to pioneer heterogeneously integrated photonic technologies for ultra-fast, energy-efficient optical information processing in event-driven sensing.

Information
Photonics is widely regarded as the key enabling technology of the 21st century and its application and use in many scientific and industrial fields is accelerated through Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs), which combine many optical components into a miniaturized chip format. Similar to electronic ICs, PICs are revolutionizing areas such as healthcare, communication and sensing, and have the potential to be disruptive to the whole society. A diversity of PIC-based sensors have been proposed, such as environmental sensors (e.g. gas sensing), medical sensors (e.g. optical coherence tomography), fiber Bragg grating sensors for temperature or strain measurement, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and others.

Recently, information processing has been evolving towards architectures inspired by biological neural systems. In particular, neuromorphic photonics aims to develop artificial photonic neurons that process information through sparse, event-driven optical spikes, enabling sensing systems with unprecedented speed and energy efficiency. A central objective of the project is to develop highly sensitive photodetector neurons by combining resonant tunneling diode (RTD) excitable dynamics with quantum-dot active devices capable of providing a nonlinear amplifying response to extremely weak optical stimuli. These photonic neurons will be realized as compact InP coupons designed for heterogeneous integration onto silicon-based photonic platforms, enabling scalable co-integration with advanced photonic and electronic circuits. The developed technology will be validated in a proof-of-concept event-driven sensing application, where relevant information is processed only when meaningful events occur, significantly reducing latency, data volumes and energy consumption.

You will investigate the complete technology stack, including device physics, photonic and electronic design, modelling, chip layout, cleanroom fabrication, heterogeneous integration and experimental characterization. You will collaborate closely with researchers working on photonic neurons and heterogeneous integration, contributing to the development of a new generation of energy-efficient intelligent photonic sensors.

You will be part of the Photonic Integration (PhI) group at TU/e, which has a long track record of setting pioneering results in indium phosphide (InP) based photonic integration. We are a key player in the field, as evidenced by our founding and coordinating role in the globally leading Joint European Platform for photonic integrated components and circuits JePPIX. We take a leading role in driving InP-based photonic integration towards the next level. A key enabler for our work is our state-of-the-art Nanolab cleanroom facility

(http://www.tue.nl/nanolab), which hosts a state-of-the-art 4” processing line for III-V semiconductors, including an ASML DUV scanner, AIXTRON MOCVD G10 epitaxy reactor, electron beam lithography, diverse plasma etching tools, wafer-level bonding equipment and others.