Revolutionizing Communication and Computation

The building blocks of the modern information age

Optoelectronics are the foundational units of our information-technology society.

We rely on these devices daily, for everything from lighting and displays, to data transmission and sensors.

Our society is driven by data. Everything from checking the weather, navigating your car, to watching a show, these all depend on the transmission of data between devices.

As the demand for data has grown, the need to increase the speed and efficiency of data transmission has escalated, which is where optoelectronic materials and devices play a critical role.

Advancing these technologies is critical to the development of more energy efficient lighting and accurate displays, faster communication and enhanced computing.

What is an Optoelectronic Device?

Optoelectronics are devices that operate at the interface between electronic energy and electromagnetic, or optical, energy. These devices can either convert electrical energy into electromagnetic energy, or vice versa.

A light emitting diode, such as those found in modern lighting and displays, is an optoelectronic device that converts electrical energy into light.

A digital camera sensor, such as those found in cell phones, is an optoelectronic device that converts light into an electrical signal to build the digital picture.

Optoelectronic Devices are already enabling technologies we use everyday

Technologies such as the cell phone include light emitting diodes, light capturing sensors and data transmission antennae, all of which are optoelectronic devices.

While these have already enabled fantastic advances in our capabilities, new and exciting possibilities are emerging as we better understand and control these devices.

Electronic Communication has revolutionized the world!

By driving down the size and improving the efficiency and performance of the electronic transistor we now carry around on our wrist a computer with more than 100,000 times the processing power of the computer that landed humans on the moon.

What comes next?

Electronic components are starting to reach a plateau in performance improvement, because we are getting very close to the limit of how small we can make a transistor.

As of 2022, IBM announced that it has successfully developed a two-nanometer transistor, the equivalent of only 10 times the size of a Silicon atom.

What if we could replace this with an optoelectronic transistor? We could overcome this size limit and open the door to a whole realm of new technologies and possibilities.

The advance from a computer the size of a room to the processors we carry around in our pocket fundamentally changed the way we live and communicated across the globe. Building computers based on optoelectronic components will not just speed up existing modes of computing, but mark a step change, laying the way for quantum computing, secure cyber systems and real-time long-distance communication.

How are we going to do it?

We are at an exciting convergence point in the research that is required to make significant advances in optoelectronics. IMOD has assembled expert theoretical and experimental teams that are working together. Check out our Research Overview page for more information on how we collaborate. This includes teams using cutting-edge chemical synthesis to put together the chemical building blocks needed (Research Theme 1), teams that can take these building blocks and integrate them into device structures using state-of-the-art additive manufacturing (Research Theme 2), and teams that can take these devices and build them into novel applications for next generation technologies (Research Theme 3).