The future of our information-based society will be built on hybrid technologies, EHCI researchers Diana Leitao and Chigo Okonkwo are convinced. And that is why both scientists, though firmly rooted in their respective disciplines of physics and electrical engineering, are strong advocates for seeking synergies between people with different research backgrounds.
Information is the new gold. In an era when virtually every part of our daily lives is controlled by digital systems and hackers can shut down universities, municipalities, or even electricity networks, gathering, analysing, transmitting, and using data has become the backbone of society. The development of sustainable, energy-efficient and trustworthy systems for sensing, computing and communicating is therefore of undisputed importance.
At the Eindhoven Hendrik Casimir Institute, researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds, both in terms of scientific disciplines and geographic origin, work together to develop the information and communication systems of the future.
Leverage on track record
Physicist Diana Leitao and electrical engineer Chigo Okonkwo both came to Eindhoven from abroad to leverage on Brainport's track record in high-tech systems. Okonkwo joined TU/e in 2010 as a postdoc researcher after earning his PhD in optical signal processing at the University of Essex. Since then, he has built up a world-class high-capacity optical transmission laboratory where he collaborates with several industrial partners.
What I find interesting about my field of research is that it has industrial relevance.
Currently, Okonkwo is an Associate Professor at the Electro-Optical Communication group. "After obtaining my PhD, I was looking for a different environment. Eindhoven was renowned for its focus on optical fiber communications combined with photonic integration, and for the funding opportunities in this field. I was employed as a tenure track Assistant Professor to work on high-capacity optical systems and was given the opportunity to set up my own lab. What I find interesting about my field of research is that it has industrial relevance. We are building the backbone of the internet. Our research is systems-oriented, and we solve scientifically challenging, relevant problems to make our future, high-capacity communication systems more energy-efficient, robust and secure."
Like Okonkwo, Diana Leitao, who has been working at the Physics of Nanostructures group as an Assistant Professor for about a year now, is also driven by societal relevance in her research into novel thin-film stackings and fabrication methods to improve the performance of magnetic sensors. "The sensors I am working on to detect magnetic fields have widespread applications, ranging from the automotive sector to biomedical devices. After obtaining my PhD in Physics in Porto and Madrid, I worked in Lisbon, first as a postdoctoral researcher and then with a personal FCT Investigator Starting Grant. After this I was looking for a new challenge where I could engage more in teaching. When I came across the work here, it was the interplay between academia and industry that especially attracted me. This region houses a lot of industry related to microdevices, nanofabrication, and lithography, making it a vibrant, interesting place to work. On top of that, the tight relations between our spintronics oriented group and the groups working on photonics enables me to take the next steps in combining magnetism with optics."
The hybrid future
It is in this combination of different technologies where Leitao sees a bright future for sensing, as she explains. "I am always looking for the next steps to keep the technology competitive. So, besides working on improvements of what we have now, I also contemplate what we can come up with that is totally new. In my opinion, the future is in hybrid technology, where we take the best of each individual field and combine those to provide a new solution that offers functionality that was not there before."
I am always looking for the next steps to keep the technology competitive.
As far as magnetics-based sensors go, one of the many challenges is to come to versatile, reprogrammable sensors that can for example both detect very low fields and very high fields with high spatial resolution, or sense three dimensional magnetic fields, Leitao explains. "The combination of electronics and photonics opens up a lot of new possibilities there," Leitao thinks. "You can think of spintronic memories , where the magnetic bits are written and read by light - as the ones being developed by my colleagues in the group."
"And though I don't know exactly what to expect from the quantum leap, I can imagine our sensors to be of use for highly sensitive metrology purposes, or for non-destructive evaluation of critical hardware elements that play a role in quantum computing."
Taking a practical approach
To optimize the chance that her designs end up in applications, Leitao takes a practical approach to developing the next generation of sensors. "Our approach is based on thin film technology," she notes. "By changing the packing of atoms, playing around with the thicknesses of the subsequent layers of material, and by making new combinations of materials, we can nanoengineer novel structures to fulfil the requirements for specific applications. But instead of looking for exotic combinations that would work best in theory, we start from materials that are common in semiconductor industry, and tune and control their physical properties towards what we are looking for."
This practical approach is another trait Leitao and Okonkwo have in common. As one of the leaders of EHCI's focus area 'Quantum secure networks', Okonkwo aims to establish a real-world quantum network that uses encryption based on the principles of quantum physics to secure information.
We test technology that is currently available off the shelf, and in parallel we develop new technology from the lab to the field.
"Several years ago, I teamed up with Idelfonso Tafur Monroy to bring quantum transmission systems into the field, alongside classical communication systems," as he tells the tale of how this line of research came to be. In the meantime, this research topic has become a key area of research in the Netherlands through the Quantum Delta NL Growth Fund proposal that has recently been awarded 615 million euros in funding. "In our testbed, which basically connects our labs on the TU/e campus with various test locations in the region via an existing optical fiber network, we test technology that is currently available off the shelf, and in parallel we develop new technology from the lab to the field."
