Recently, a Chinese research team has successfully developed a new type of "optical silicon" chip that can be mass-produced, which has attracted high attention from the industry.

The research team and cooperation team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Institute of Microsystems and Information Technology jointly developed the micro/nano processing method of ultra-low loss lithium tantalate photonic devices, and successfully prepared lithium tantalate photonic chips by combining wafer level streaming process. The characteristics exhibited by this chip are expected to provide solutions for breaking through the four major bottlenecks of speed, power consumption, frequency, and bandwidth in the field of communication, and to give rise to revolutionary technologies in fields such as low-temperature quantum, optical computing, and optical communication.

In fact, in addition to achieving significant breakthroughs in the field of photonic chips, Chinese research teams have also made significant progress in other semiconductor fields recently.

The first 2Tb/s three-dimensional integrated silicon optical chip in China has been successfully sampled

Currently, the industry is improving the overall performance of computing power systems by developing silicon-based optical interconnect chip solutions with larger capacity, higher speed, and higher integration, in order to meet the explosive growth demand of AI computing power systems for high-performance interconnect technology brought about by the rapid development of artificial intelligence. However, silicon optical solutions face significant challenges in terms of speed, power consumption, and integration for the next generation of single channel 200G or higher optical interface speed requirements.

On May 9th, according to "China Optics Valley", the optoelectronic fusion joint team of the National Information Optoelectronics Innovation Center (NOEIC) and Pengcheng Laboratory completed the development and functional verification of 2Tb/s silicon optical interconnect chips. For the first time in China, the 3D silicon-based optoelectronic chip architecture was validated, achieving a unidirectional interconnect bandwidth of up to 8 x 256Gb/s.

It is reported that the team has further broken through the optoelectronic collaborative design and simulation method based on the 1.6T silicon optical interconnect chip in 2021, developed a single channel ultra 200G driver and TIA chip for silicon optical matching, and conquered the silicon based optoelectronic 3D stacking packaging technology, forming a complete set of 3D chip integration solutions based on silicon optical chips.

This achievement will be widely applied in various optical module products such as CPO, NPO, LPO, LRO, etc. required for next-generation computing power systems and data centers. It is expected to achieve mass commercialization of high-end silicon optical chips in the near future.

The Chinese team has developed the world's first gallium nitride quantum light source chip

According to the introduction of "Shanghai Jiading" at the end of April, the Information and Quantum Laboratory of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Tsinghua University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Institute of Microsystems and Information Technology have successfully developed the world's first GaN quantum light source chip. This breakthrough not only lays a solid foundation for China's research in the field of quantum communication, but also injects new vitality into the development of global quantum technology.

In this project, the research team successfully overcame technical challenges such as gallium nitride crystal thin film growth and waveguide sidewall and surface scattering losses by optimizing electron beam exposure and dry etching processes, and successfully applied gallium nitride materials for the first time in the development of quantum light source chips.

It is reported that the newly developed gallium nitride quantum light source chip has achieved significant breakthroughs in key performance indicators - its output wavelength range has significantly expanded from 25.6 nanometers to 100 nanometers, and has the potential to develop towards single-chip integration. This innovation means that the future "quantum light bulb" will be able to illuminate more fields, thus making the quantum internet with large capacity, long distance and high quality possible.

Compared to existing communication methods, quantum communication has significant advantages in security, accuracy, and transmission speed. With the continuous improvement of quantum technology, it will be widely applied in highly confidential fields such as military, finance, and scientific research, and is expected to further promote the development of modern information technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Scholars from Zhejiang University have made progress in the creation of water-based photoresists for development

With funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. T2225004) and other institutions, Professor Wu Guangpeng's team at Zhejiang University has made new progress in the creation of chemically amplified photoresists.

According to the website of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Professor Wu Guangpeng's team from Zhejiang University used a self-developed highly active organic boron catalyst to prepare a new type of photoresist film-forming resin that combines high transparency carbonate main chain and high acid sensitive aldehyde side group, using carbon dioxide and epoxy compounds with acid sensitive cyclic acetal structures as raw materials.

The research team compared the performance of the prepared photoresist resin with commercial KrF and ArF photoresist resins, and the results showed that this type of chemically amplified photoresist exhibited excellent sensitivity, contrast, resolution, and etching resistance. Meanwhile, this type of photoresist system can be stably stored for more than 60 days at room temperature. This provides a new approach for developing high-performance deep ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet photoresists.

Chinese scientists have achieved fractional quantum anomalous Hall states of photons for the first time

On May 6th, a research team at the University of Science and Technology of China, based on a new type of superconducting quantum bit independently developed and named by Chinese scientists, achieved nonlinear interactions between photons and further constructed an equivalent magnetic field acting on photons in this system to construct an artificial gauge field, achieving the fractional quantum anomalous Hall state of photons for the first time internationally.

According to China News Network, this breakthrough in the field of fundamental research in quantum physics is an important part of the "Second Quantum Revolution" and is expected to be applied in simulating quantum systems that are difficult to perform classical calculations and achieve "quantum computing superiority" in the near future.

This study proposes a new paradigm for studying complex quantum states from the bottom up, as artificially constructed quantum systems have clear and flexible structures. Its advantages include: without the need for an external magnetic field, an equivalent artificial gauge field can be constructed by transforming the coupling form; By high-precision addressable manipulation of the system, comprehensive measurement of the microscopic properties of highly integrated quantum systems can be achieved, and further controllable utilization can be achieved.

Peter Zoller, recipient of the Wolf Prize in Physics and professor at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, pointed out that the high-precision generation of such highly entangled quantum states on quantum devices opens the door to the study of singular quantum states and is the starting point for realizing the long-term dream of building a new type of fault-tolerant quantum computer.

The research team of Harbin Institute of Technology has made new progress in the field of hafnium based ferroelectric thin films

In late April, the research team of Harbin Institute of Technology made significant progress in the field of hafnium based ferroelectric thin films, providing a basis for achieving ultrafast ferroelectric storage.

Hafnium dioxide ferroelectric phase is a metastable structure, and as the most common defect type in hafnium dioxide, oxygen vacancies have a significant effect on stabilizing the metastable ferroelectric phase. The ferroelectricity discovered in high dielectric gate dielectric material hafnium dioxide (HfO2) thin films provides new opportunities for solving ferroelectric storage.

However, oxygen vacancies also have a negative impact on device performance. Especially the pinning effect of oxygen vacancies on ferroelectric domain walls leads to a decrease in the flipping speed of hafnium dioxide ferroelectric polarization, putting hafnium based ferroelectric storage at a disadvantage in terms of read and write speed. Solving the "double-edged sword effect" of oxygen vacancies is crucial for improving the polarization reversal characteristics of hafnium dioxide ferroelectricity, and is the key to achieving high polarization and fast read and write performance of hafnium based ferroelectricity.

According to Harbin Institute of Technology, the research team has, for the first time, applied the co doping method of acceptor (lanthanum element) and donor (tantalum element) to the performance control of epitaxial hafnium based ferroelectric thin films in response to the above issues. Through this method, researchers have obtained hafnium based ferroelectric thin films with both high polarization and fast flipping properties, with a flipping time as low as sub nanoseconds, comparable to traditional perovskite ferroelectric oxide materials.

Harbin Institute of Technology stated that the team's proposed co doping strategy is of great significance in defect control of hafnium based ferroelectric materials, achieving reduction of flip energy barriers, improving ferroelectric performance, and increasing flip speed. This provides effective guidance for accelerating the practical application of hafnium based ferroelectric thin films in new low-power, fast, and non-volatile storage and logic devices.

National University of Science and Technology has made progress in the joint optimization algorithm of light source mask for high numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet lithography

High NA (NA=0.55) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is a key technology for achieving advanced integrated circuit manufacturing at 5nm and below, and its imaging performance is limited by many factors.

Light source mask joint optimization (SMO) is an important technology for improving imaging quality in advanced lithography processes, and has been successfully applied in technologies up to 14nm. Therefore, establishing an SMO algorithm for High NA EUV lithography systems has clear and important practical application value.

At the end of April, Professor Wei Yayi's research group of the School of Integrated Circuits, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, cooperated with Professor Ma Xu's research group of the School of Optoelectronics, Beijing University of Technology, and proposed a SMO algorithm suitable for the High NA EUV lithography system, which effectively improved the imaging quality of the lithography system.

It is reported that this algorithm can achieve more than 10 times higher computational efficiency in GPU environments. The simulation results show that the algorithm can reduce lithography pattern errors by about 70%, significantly improve lithography imaging quality, and quickly complete optimization in about 150 seconds.

Peking University realizes high electrical performance semiconductor hydrogel for the first time

Hydrogels have similar mechanical properties, high water content and good ion permeability to biological tissues, and are widely used in tissue engineering, medical dressings, biosensors and other fields.

However, due to the lack of semiconductor hydrogel materials, hydrogel electronic devices can not achieve rich integrated circuit functions and other challenges. In this regard, the Thunder Research Group of Peking University proposed a semiconductor hydrogel design strategy, which fills the gap that traditional hydrogel materials cannot achieve high-performance electronic circuits.

The research group realized the semiconductor hydrogel with excellent mechanical properties, semiconductor properties, interface properties and biocompatibility by cross-linking water-soluble cationic conjugated polymers with anti ions or blending with other hydrogels to form a multi network structure.

This research is the first time to realize the preparation of semiconductor hydrogels with high electrical properties and the application of electronic devices. It combines the excellent electrical properties of organic semiconductors with the unique mechanical and biological interface properties of hydrogels, expanding the application range of organic semiconductors and hydrogel materials.

China's pioneering new field effect controlled photodiode

According to the news from the University of Science and Technology of China, the research group of professors from the university and the team of academician Liu Sheng from Wuhan University have collaborated to propose a new type of three electrode photoelectric PN junction diode structure for the first time internationally, constructing a new method of carrier modulation, and achieving effective regulation of the photoelectric characteristics of the diode by the external electric field at the third port.

It is reported that in order to enhance the integration and development of the entire optoelectronic technology, increase the signal transmission speed and bandwidth of the optoelectronic system, while reducing the system size and complexity. Researchers cleverly and compactly integrated traditional photodiodes with a metal oxide semiconductor structure on a chip by introducing a "third electrode" in the P-type region. This three terminal diode reduces the demand for external bias circuits in optical communication systems, achieving smaller volume and wider bandwidth in optical communication systems.

In addition, the team also built optical communication systems and reconfigurable optoelectronic logic gate systems based on the new photodiode, demonstrating the enormous potential of this device in optical communication and optoelectronic logic operations.

Researchers have stated that due to the simple structure and manufacturing process of the device, the proposal of the new field-effect regulated photodiode architecture can be widely applied to other active optoelectronic integrated chips and device platforms made of various semiconductor materials, which has important value in promoting the development of the next generation of high-speed and multifunctional optoelectronic integrated chips.