MUSICIAN VISION
OBJETIVES
Recent advances in nanotechnology have enabled the generation, manipulation, and detection of coherent motion in NOEMS, resulting in devices that hold the promise for disruptive applications in both the classical (microwave photonics, sensing, electro-optical modulation3) and quantum (coherent microwave-to-optics interfaces) realms. A NOEMS usually consists of one or several mechanical oscillators that are simultaneously coupled to an electrical signal (via, for instance, piezoelectric effects) as well as to an optical wave (via optomechanical (OM) interaction). In a sense, this means that we can have both NEMS and NOMS (each with their associated functionalities), but the electric and optical degrees of freedom are connected by the mechanics of the system, thus adding new functionalities.
The main scientific and technological objectives of MUSICIAN are the following:
1. Enhancing the EM coupling in nanoscale mechanical cavities required to reach GHz regime by engineering acoustic metasurfaces to manipulate the mechanical flow.
2. Understanding the energy flow into and in a mechanical oscillator to control the frequency fluctuations and improve the long-term stability.
3. Building a power-efficient demonstrator for 5G applications, benefitting from the developments of the objectives 1 and 2.
CONCEPT
Today’s information and communication technology is essentially governed by information processing using CMOS microelectronics and distribution of information via optical telecom network. Introducing a third variable –phonons– will lead to additional degrees of freedom in ITC applications. Exploiting the interaction between the three particles and the available degrees of freedom in the nano-opto-electro-mechanical systems (NOEMS) will lead to advancing the potential of low power information processing and transmitting, this enabling realisation of the next low-power ITC generation technology.
The telecom networks providing IoT connectivity will require massive use of base stations (BS) or access nodes at the optical network units (ONUS) which will be interconnected via optical fibres. This means that BS will include fibre-optics interfaces and electronics. The frequency range will be between 3 and 6 GHz, which is where most access systems (5G, WiFi, DOCSIS) will operate in the next years. Interestingly, NOEMS can operate at such spectral regimes by engineering nanobeams that can be interfaced with telecom-wavelength optics and electronics. The extreme miniaturization when implemented in silicon integrated circuitry, with mechanical and optical fields overlapping in wavelength-scale regions, also results in strong electro-mechanical (EM) and optomechanical (OM) interactions, ultimately enabling low-power-consumption devices.
The long-term vision of MUSICIAN is that current and next generation access networks, required to implement the IoT paradigm, will include low-cost power-efficient silicon-based NOEMS – combining optical fibre telecom as well as RF electronics – enabling realisation of power efficient network functions such as photonic local oscillators, channel frequency conversion or electro-optical modulation.
To implement this long-term vision, some fundamental scientific challenges need to be considered, mainly in what refers to the manipulation of mechanical waves in the device to achieve higher energy efficiency in EM coupling and to get a deeper insight into the long-term frequency stability of the mechanical resonators to be used in practical applications.