Q&A with Ahmed Abdelhady

What project are you working on?

I am currently working on a DSP-free WDM silicon-photonic coherent receiver for short-reach data-center communications. The goal is to design a small optical chip that can receive several wavelength channels in parallel while using much less power than conventional coherent receivers. My work focuses on silicon-photonic filters, WDM receiver architecture, and integrated optical control blocks.

What problem(s) are you aiming to address through your research?

Modern data centers need to move enormous amounts of information quickly, especially with the growth of cloud computing and AI. However, many high-performance optical receivers rely on power-hungry digital signal processing, which becomes a major limitation when scaled to many links. My research aims to keep the capacity and sensitivity advantages of coherent optical communication while reducing the power, cost, and complexity of the receiver.

What inspired you to pursue this program of study?

I became interested in silicon photonics during my undergraduate project on WDM optical transceivers, where I saw how integrated optics could help build faster and more efficient communication systems. This motivated me to continue in optical communications and silicon photonics at Université Laval. Working at COPL under the supervision of Prof. Leslie Rusch and Prof. Wei Shi has further encouraged me to pursue research that connects device-level photonic design with practical communication-system needs.