Lianshan Yan1, Ninghua Zhu2, Qing Pan3, Jie He3 and Wei Pan1
- Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China, 610031, lsyan@home.swjtu.edu.cn
- Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, 100083
- National Natural Science Foundation of China, Beijing, China, 100085
Research, in general, could be driven by either pursuing scientific dreams or meeting societal requirements. Compared to other countries in the world and following the similar or even more dramatic economic demands in different areas, such as datacom & telecom, green energy, advanced manufacturing, national security, etc., photonics research in China during the last decade have experienced a fast-growing period that could be characterized as “building, catching, specializing and leading”. Detailed analyses will be reviewed during the talk with some highlights listed as bellow.
- Building state-of-art infrastructures
Since last 80’s, China has initiated different programs to build up research infrastructures with state-of-art facilities. Up till now, there are three National Labs, about twenty National Key Labs and National Engineering Labs, as well as more than one hundred key labs of ministries and provinces, related to photonics research crossing the whole country.
- Catching cutting-edge topics
Different hot topics, including nano-, bio-, silicon- and microwave-photonics, 3-D display, photovoltaics, distributed sensor, etc., have been quickly caught by scientists and engineers. These cutting-edge researches are mainly funded by three national programs or resources, i.e. National Basic Research Program (973 program), NationalHigh Technology Research and Development Program (863 program) and National Natural Science of China (NSFC).
- Specializing systematic integration
“Horizontal-style” with individual research goals at material, component, module, system and network levels is no longer the major pattern for key projects, while “vertical-integration” from the bottom (material) to the top (system/network applications) is more encouraged to pursue through team collaborations. Key programs funded by three resources, such as optoelectronic integration, microwave photonics, multi-dimensional transmission, 3-D display, etc., are all following the systematic style. Milestones are more often to be expected under such team integration.
- Leading cost-effective solutions
Under the pressure of global and national economic development, China has spent lots of efforts on cost-effective solutions through research and development, mainly driven or led by big carriers or suppliers (Huawei, ZTE, Hisense, China Mobile, etc.). These solutions have been widely deployed or used and some of them are regarded as taking the leading roles in the world such as telecomm (metro or long-haul), fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), photovoltaics (solar cells) and so on.