HOT is a FET-proactive project funded by the EU through the H2020 programme.  It brings together 13 leading academic and 4 industrial partners from across Europe, focusing on Hybrid Optomechanical Technologies

HOT  will lay the foundation for a new generation of hybrid devices which exploit a nano- or micro-mechanical oscillator to couple and control the electrical, optical and microwave domains. These devices will enable capabilities such as low phase-noise microwave generation, radiofrequency-to-optical conversion and on-chip microwave and optical isolators. Target domains include medicine (MRI), security (radar and terahertz imaging), timing and navigation, and future quantum technology. To this end HOT will develop processes to fabricate the devices in CMOS foundries to allow the technology to scale according to the demands of the consumer market. While the technology investigated by the HOT consortium lends itself to commercialization, there is rich fundamental physics to be investigated in these systems. HOT seeks to generate non-classical states of mechanical systems, observe self-organization of multi-element systems and demonstrate molecular optomechanics.

Objectives

• Realization of hybrid transducers, converting signals from the optical to the microwave domain
• Developing mechanical meta-materials: by engineering the interaction between multiple mechanical and electromagnetic modes, HOT will produce low phase-noise microwave oscillators and non-reciprocal microwave isolators.
• Ultrahigh frequency optomechanics: HOT will use novel materials and architectures to perform optomechanics in previously unexplored frequency bands.
• Develop CMOS processing and packaging of devices combining optical, electronic and mechanical degrees of freedom.

Role of Ghent University

UGent will contribute to objective 3 (ultrahigh frequency optomechanics) and objective 4 (processing of HOT-prototypes in standard CMOS pilot line) 

Contact

Prof. Dries Van Thourhout
Photonics Research Group, Department of information technology
+32 9 264 3438
dries.vanthourhout@ugent.be