Optical nanoantennas based on tapered silicon waveguides could give chips high-speed data interconnects over millimeter-scale distances. Photonic integrated circuits are promising for realizing high-performance computing, advanced networks on chips, and lab-on-chip sensors. Unguided wireless interconnects provide reconfigurability and offer highly directional emission, which can be controlled by using nanoheaters to alter the phase shift of light. Experiments performed by Carlos Garcia-Meca and co-workers from the Universitat Politècnica de València in Spain demonstrate that such nanoantenna technology is compatible with wavelength-division multiplexing and can realize a 4-channel, 160 Gbits s−1 interconnect over a 0.4 mm long link at the telecommunications window of 1550 nm. Furthermore, the wireless approach can potentially overcome the problem of crossing points, which can plague complex circuits employing many physical waveguides, and provide ultra-compact chip-integrated solutions for point-of-care biomedical equipment.
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