Prof. Dr. Ziyang Zhang: „Optical Waveguide Technology at Westlake University“

Abstract
Optical waveguides are one of the key technologies that have enabled the rapid development of the optical communication technology and hence led to the information era we are living in. In this talk, I will introduce some recent development on optical waveguides at Westlake University, a newly founded research entity in Hangzhou, China. As a general development kit, the concept of function programmable waveguide engine (FPWE) will be revealed, capable of developing large network of optical routing switches and photonic computation chips using simple structures and fewer control units without tedious numerical simulations.

Biography
Ziyang Zhang graduated in Zhejiang University majoring in Optical Engineering in 2003. He received his Msc. and PhD degree on silicon photonic devices from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden in 2003 and 2008, respectively. In the same year, he joined Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institute (HHI) in Berlin, Germany and worked 8 years on polymer photonics, InP-based optoelectronics and hybrid photonic integration. In 2016, he accepted the position at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics (AIP) in Potsdam, Germany as head of the Astro-Optics group, to address pressing issues in astronomy with the development of “smart” fibers and integrated photonic modules. In October 2018, he joined Westlake University as Principal Investigator (PI) in the Laboratory of Optical Engineering. His current research focuses on the development of smart optical chips for communication, sensing and computing applications.