Stephen E. Ralph - Integrated Photonics

"Integrated Photonics"
Stephen E. Ralph
Professor, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering
GTRI Glen Robinson Chair in Electro-Optics
Director, Georgia Electronic Design Center

Abstract: Large-scale photonics integration provides a promising platform for high-density, high-bandwidth interferometric chip sets. These heterogenous systems are essential for next-generation telecommunications, neuromorphic computing, quantum information processing and sensing. Achieving integration densities equivalent to integrated electronics, incorporating vast networks of thousands or millions of sophisticated photonic devices, requires design and simulation software tools that harness the full capabilities of photonics while ensuring manufacturability, efficient heterogeneous packaging, and the ability to effectively test integrated systems.

This talk reviews recent advances in machine learning techniques, including inverse design and performance monitoring, that address a wide range of practical high-capacity photonics design challenges, incorporating manufacturing constraints, user defined performance goals while ensuring end to end performance.


Bio: Stephen E. Ralph is a Professor with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech. Prof. Ralph holds the Glen Robinson Chair in Electro-optics and has a joint appointment at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. Prof. Ralph received the B.E.E. degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Cornell University.

Dr. Ralph is director of the Georgia Electronic Design Center, a multi-disciplinary center within Georgia Tech focused on high-speed electronic and photonic circuits and systems with a strong commitment to industry collaborations. Dr. Ralph also leads an NSF supported Industry-University Cooperative Research Center Program (IUCRC) focused on Electronic and Photonic Integrated Circuits for Aerospace (EPICA) with more than 20 industrial members.

He has published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers in journals and conference proceedings and holds 15 patents in the fields of photonic devices, communications and signal processing. Georgia Tech has licensed multiple inventions to his research sponsors. His team has established many records in high-capacity fiber links and made innovative advances in machine learning applied to photonics systems including the development of integrated photonic design tools known as Topology Optimization. Applications include wideband optical signal processing, optical interconnects, optical performance monitoring, component and system optimization, microwave photonics and quantum communications.