The Silicon Photonics group at the University of Surrey is one of the pioneering groups in the field, having worked on silicon photonics since the late 1980s. The group carried out the early work upon which Bookham Technology based its original business, and the founder of Bookham Technology, Dr Andrew Rickman, was a student in the group at Surrey.

The Group has contributed to advancements in the start of the art around the world, and has worked with many of the leading groups worldwide. Notably professor Reed, who leads the Surrey group is a consultant to Intel Santa Clara, and was involved in both the modulator program as well as the Silicon Raman laser work reported by Intel that have significantly raised the profile of silicon photonics in recent years. The group has also recently reported polarization independent ring resonators in SOI, and has a long history in the development of optical modulators in SOI, having reported a series of benchmark devices in the early 1990s.

The group is located in the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) at the University of Surrey, which is equipped with numerous optical laboratories with Si waveguide characterisation only one aspect of the resources available. Also a range of characterisation facilities are available including photoluminescence, electrical characterisation, waveguide based characterisation in the range 1.1µm - 1.6µm (tunable lasers, OSAs, numerous lasers and detectors and piezoelectrically controlled alignment techniques). SEM and AFM characterisation is available, and a cleam room fabrication facility will shortly be available. The ATI also includes the National Ion Beam Facility for both ion implantation and surface analysis techniques. A range of optical modelling facilities are available including FDTD, BPM, and FEM, all of which can be applied to silicon photonics devices. Electrical modelling of silicon devices is available via the use of Silvaco software, for prediction of carrier density in any part of the photonic device, enabling optimisation of both geometric and and electronic properties of the designed device.