Optical Technologies for Data Center Networks

Dear Colleagues,

Driven by the exponential growth of big data from the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, high performance computing and data center interconnects, there has been tremendous growth in integrated photonic transceivers and switches due to the numerous foundries that have enabled fabless designs, both on InP and Si platforms. For instance, compact transceiver modules have enabled WDM connectivity in datacenters and integrated photonic switches have enabled reconfigurable data center networks. Improvements in device design have also enabled low power photonic devices and increased the number of devices that can fit onto a die. Advanced packaging technologies have led to high volume and low cost packages.

With the technical progress on deep learning (DL)-driven applications, such as natural language processing, image recognition, and virtual assistants, computational requirements of DL applications have been significantly increased. To meet the growing computational requirement, optical circuit switch (OCS)-based distributed processing on high-performance computing (HPC) systems is recognized as a practical solution.

In this issue, we would like to cover photonic-based technologies targeting for datacenter applications and want to invite researchers to submit their research on the following topics:

1. Silicon photonics for datacenter interconnects;
2. Co-packaged optics: architecture design;
3. Optical interconnects and signal processing for data centers;
4. Optical switches;
5. Transceivers designed in silicon photonic foundry;
6. Monolithically integrated light sources and optical amplifiers: including, but not limited to, vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), direct modulation lasers (DMLs), mode locked lasers (MLLs), semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs), tunable single wavelength lasers, laser arrays for WDM application, etc.;
7. High-speed modulators;
8. Photonics-enabled network optimization for datacenter and HPC systems.

Dr. Akhilesh S. P. Khope
Dr. Yu-Han Hung
Dr. Songtao Liu
Guest Editors

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