BOOM, a research project on silicon photonic components, has been launched with a kickoff meeting to discuss the joint activities.

Members of the project come from a variety of organizations in the field of photonics integration, including research centres, universities, a telecommunications operator and other businesses. Their efforts are being coordinated by the Institute of Communications & Computer Systems at the National Technical University of Athens.

With support from the European Union’s Seventh Research Framework Programme, the project will focus on advancing silicon-on-insulator integration technology to develop compact, cost-effective and power-efficient silicon photonic components, with the goal of enabling terabit-per-second capacity systems for high-speed broadband core networks. To achieve this, the member organizations will develop a silicon-on-insulator optical board technology that will combine the cost-effectiveness of silicon with the high processing power and bandwidth of III-V materials.