Fundamental bounds for photonic interconnects

Abstract

Based on well-known laws of physics, we establish a lower bound on energy-per-bit required for transmitting information using a photonic channel. Our analysis includes the energy required to convert information from the electronic to the photonic domain and back. We demonstrate that most energy is required to perform this conversion. We furthermore establish a bound on the bandwidth density. © 2011 National Sun Yat-Sen Univ.