Photonics

The European Commission has approved a €211 million Italian state aid grant for CamGraPhIC to develop photonic optical transceivers based on graphene. 

The EU statement stated that the technology can be used across sectors including automotive, telecommunications, aerospace and defense. The project will be carried out in Pisa in Tuscany and in Bergamo in Lombardy. The work will involve collaborations with universities and research and technology organizations.

Researchers from Nanyang Technological University, University of Chicago, University of Wisconsin, Chungnam National University, National Institute for Materials Science, MIT and Singapore University of technology and design have developed hybrid tungsten oxyselenide/graphene electrodes that enable near-lossless optical phase modulation in two-dimensional semiconductor devices. The work targets a long-standing trade-off in integrated photonics, where improving modulation efficiency typically increases optical loss, especially for graphene-based designs at telecommunication wavelengths.

Schematic of the fabricated device structure, consisting of a capacitor stack (monolayer WS2/hBN/graphene/TOS) integrated onto a SiN microring resonator. Right top: Side-view schematic of the device, highlighting electrical contacts with the bottom WS2 layer and top graphene electrode, connected independently to gold electrodes for voltage biasing. Right bottom: Optical image of the actual device. Image from: Light: Science & Applications

In this approach, monolayer WSe₂ is converted by UV–ozone treatment into tungsten oxyselenide (TOS), which acts as a strong p‑type dopant for graphene. Heavy p‑doping shifts graphene’s Fermi level such that its absorption around 1550 nm is strongly suppressed, while its conductivity is enhanced, allowing graphene to function as a transparent, low-resistance top electrode in the near‑infrared.

Graphene-Info is pleased to announce that registration is now open for Graphene-Connect 2026, our flagship two-day virtual event dedicated to graphene industrialization and innovation, taking place online on 11–12 March 2026, in collaboration with Techblick.

Graphene-Connect 2026, preliminary agenda

Graphene-Connect tickets start at our special early bird price of $400 (with discounts available for group passes).

Event overview

Graphene-Connect 2026 is the must-attend worldwide meeting place for the graphene industry, bringing together the full value chain from material producers to end users. The live online format combines a curated technical program with advanced networking tools and virtual exhibition spaces, designed to make remote participation feel as close as possible to an in‑person conference.

World-class agenda

The agenda is jointly curated by Graphene-Info and Techblick, with talks spanning graphene materials, production processes, electronics, energy storage, composites, sensors, filtration, anti-corrosion coatings, concrete, textiles, neural interfaces and more. The program mixes visionary keynotes, industrial case studies, metrology and standards updates, as well as deep-dive technical talks, ensuring relevance for both R&D experts and commercial decision-makers.

The UK's University of Cambridge has purchased a Close Coupled Showerhead® system for 2D materials from AIXTRON SE for its research and development in the field of photonics and optoelectronics. The AIXTRON system enables wafer scale growth of layered materials (2D materials). This allows the integration with silicon photonics to produce highly efficient and high speed optical data communication devices.

AIXTRON's Close Coupled Showerhead® (CCS) system is set in a 200mm configuration and is currently being installed at the Cambridge Graphene Centre to be used for the UK's Layered Materials Research Foundry (LMRF). The LMRF will focus its research on graphene and other layered materials to deliver, at a pilot scale to end users, a fully integrated silicon photonics platform.

Black Semiconductor has announced the acquisition of Applied Nanolayers (ANL), a strategic move to significantly accelerate the development of its Integrated Graphene Photonics (IGP) technology. The acquisition is expected to speed up Black Semiconductor's technology development by two years.

The acquisition combines Black Semiconductor's expertise in chip architectures and photonic process technology with ANL's specialized knowledge in graphene material production.

Frontier IP Group has announced that its portfolio company, 2D Photonics, has raised €25 million in a Series A funding round to advance the development of graphene photonics transceivers.  2D Photonics is closely related to CamGraPhIC - 2D Photonics is the parent company, with CamGraPhIC's operations in both the UK and Italy operating under its umbrella. 

This funding will enable the company to scale up production and establish a pilot manufacturing plant, positioning it at the forefront of next-generation optical technology.

The UK’s University of Cambridge and University of Southampton have been named as participants in the PIXEurope consortium, a collaboration between European research organizations that is developing and manufacturing prototypes of their products based on photonic chips. The consortium is supported by €380 million in total funding.

The Cambridge Graphene Centre and Cornerstone Photonics Innovation Centre at the University of Southampton will partner with members from across Europe to host a pilot line, coordinated by Spain’s Institute of Photonic Sciences, combining state-of-the-art equipment and expertise from 20 research organizations across 11 countries. The PIXEurope pilot line aims to encourage the adoption of cutting-edge photonic technologies across more industries to boost their efficiency.

Black Semiconductor, developer of next-gen energy-efficient high-performance chip technology, has announced its new headquarters FabONE in Aachen, Germany. FabONE will be the world's first production site for graphene-based optical chip technology. 

Dr. Daniel Schall, co-founder and CEO of Black Semiconductor, states: "The establishment of FabONE allows us to take our ongoing technology developments of graphene photonic chips to the next level and accelerate them significantly. We look forward to continuing to deliver on our vision of the next generation of chip connectivity.”

A new Horizon Europe funded project was launched in October 2023. With a consortium of 11 partners from 8 different countries, the Next-2Digits project aims to develop the next generation of sensors and imagers enabled by 2D materials digital integration. Next-2Digits will run for 3 years and 3 months.

Coordinated by the National Technical University of Athens, Next-2Digits benefits from the presence of academic, research and industrial teams, whose areas of work span from graphene and 2D materials synthesis, characterization, manipulation, and integration, as well as in the fields of photonics, material science, application-based integration technologies and validation.

A team of researchers from The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (ICFO) and Barcelona-based startup Qurv Technologies have designed flexible, nearly transparent graphene-enhanced image sensors that could be hidden in plain sight.

The sensors, based on graphene and quantum dots, could be integrated directly onto eyeglasses or curved windshields, placed right in front of a user’s eyes. This could make eye-tracking hardware less bulky, improve the accuracy of gaze detection, and reduce computational complexity, says Frank Koppens, who co-led the research and co-founded Qurv in 2020.