Andrea C. Ferrari

Cambridge Graphene Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 OFA, UK

Disruptive technologies are usually characterised by universal, versatile applications, which change many aspects of our life simultaneously, penetrating every corner of our existence. In order to become disruptive, a new technology needs to offer not incremental, but dramatic, orders of magnitude improvements. Moreover, the more universal the technology, the better chances it has for broad base success. Significant progress has been made in taking graphene and related materials from a state of raw potential to a point where they can revolutionize multiple industries.

Graphene is an ideal material for optoelectronic applications. Its photonic properties give several advantages and complementarities over Si photonics. I will show that graphene-based integrated photonics could enable ultrahigh spatial bandwidth density, low power consumption for next generation datacom and telecom applications. Heterostructures based on layers of atomic crystals have a number of properties often unique and very different from those of their individual constituents and of their three dimensional counterparts. I will show how these can be exploited in novel light emitting devices, such as single photon emitters, and tuneable light emitting diodes.