Novel Light Source Integration Approaches for Silicon Photonics

Silicon does not emit light efficiently, therefore the integration of other light‐emitting materials is highly demanded for silicon photonic integrated circuits. A number of integration approaches have been extensively explored in the past decade. Here, the most recent progress in this field is reviewed, covering the integration approaches of III‐V‐to‐silicon bonding, transfer printing, epitaxial growth and the use of colloidal quantum dots. The basic approaches to create waveguide‐coupled on‐chip light sources for different application scenarios are discussed, both for silicon and silicon nitride based waveguides. A selection of recent representative device demonstrations is presented, including high speed DFB lasers, ultra‐dense comb lasers, short (850nm) and long (2.3μm) wavelength lasers, wide‐band LEDs, monolithic O‐band lasers and micro‐disk lasers operating in the visible. The challenges and opportunities of these approaches are discussed.     

Ultra‐low loss waveguide platform and its integration with silicon photonics

Planar waveguides with ultra‐low optical propagation loss enable a plethora of passive photonic integrated circuits, such as splitters and combiners, filters, delay lines, and components for advanced modulation formats. An overview is presented of the status of the field of ultra‐low loss waveguides and circuits, including the design, the trade‐off between bend radius and loss, and fabrication rationale. The characterization methods to accurately measure such waveguides are discussed. Some typical examples of device and circuit applications are presented. An even wider range of applications becomes possible with the integration of active devices, such as lasers, amplifiers, modulators and photodetectors, on such an ultra‐low loss waveguide platform. A summary of efforts to integrate silicon nitride and silica‐based low‐loss waveguides with silicon and III/V based photonics, either hybridly or heterogeneously, will be presented. The approach to combine these integration technologies heterogeneously on a single silicon substrate is discussed and an application example of a high‐bandwidth receiver is shown.     

On‐chip stimulated Brillouin Scattering for microwave signal processing and generation

Demonstration of continuously tunable delay, low‐noise lasers, dynamically controlled gratings, and optical phase shifting using the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) process has lead to the emergence of SBS as a promising technology for microwave photonics. On‐chip realization of SBS enables photonic integration of microwave photonic signal processing and offers significantly enhanced performance and improved efficiency. On‐chip stimulated Brillouin scattering is reviewed in the context of slow‐light based tunable delay, low‐noise narrow linewidth lasers and filtering for integrated microwave photonics. A discussion on key material and device properties, necessary to enable on‐chip Brillouin scattering using both the single‐pass and resonator geometry, is presented along with an outlook for photonic integration of microwave signal processing and generation in other platforms.     

Transfer printing of fully formed thin‐film microscale GaAs lasers on silicon with a thermally conductive interface material

High performance semiconductor lasers on silicon are critical elements of next generation photonic integrated circuits. Transfer printing methods provide promising paths to achieve hybrid integration of III‐V devices on Si platforms. This paper presents materials and procedures for epitaxially releasing thin‐film microscale GaAs based lasers after their full fabrication on GaAs native substrates, and for subsequently transfer printing arrays of them onto Si wafers. An indium‐silver based alloy serves as a thermally conductive bonding interface between the lasers and the Si, for enhanced performance. Numerical calculations provide comparative insights into thermal properties for devices with metallic, organic and semiconductor interfaces. Under current injection, the first of these three interfaces provides, by far, the lowest operating temperatures. Such devices exhibit continuous‐wave lasing in the near‐infrared range under electrical pumping, with performance comparable to unreleased devices on their native substrates.

     

Hybrid vertical‐cavity laser with lateral emission into a silicon waveguide

We experimentally demonstrate an optically‐pumped III‐V/Si vertical‐cavity laser with lateral emission into a silicon waveguide. This on‐chip hybrid laser comprises a distributed Bragg reflector, a III‐V active layer, and a high‐contrast grating reflector, which simultaneously funnels light into the waveguide integrated with the laser. This laser has the advantages of long‐wavelength vertical‐cavity surface‐emitting lasers, such as low threshold and high side‐mode suppression ratio, while allowing integration with silicon photonic circuits, and is fabricated using CMOS compatible processes. It has the potential for ultrahigh‐speed operation beyond 100 Gbit/s and features a novel mechanism for transverse mode control.

     

Electro‐optic Polymer Ring Resonator Modulator on a Flat Silicon‐on‐Insulator

Optical polymers are a promising material of choice in the development of hybrid silicon photonics devices. Particularly, recent progress in electro‐optic (EO) active polymers has shown a strong Pockels effect. A ring resonator modulator is a vital building block for practical applications, such as signal processing, routing, and monitoring. However, the properties of the hybrid silicon and EO polymer ring modulators are still far from their theoretical limits. Here, we demonstrate a unique design of a hybrid ring resonator modulator simply located onto a silicon‐on‐insulator (SOI) substrate. Extra doping and etching of the SOI wafer is not required, even so we measured an in‐device electro‐optic coefficient r₃₃ = 129 pm/V. The ring modulator exhibited a high sensitivity of the electrically tunable resonance, which enabled a 3 dB bandwidth of up to 18 GHz. The proposed technique will enable efficient mass‐production of the micro‐footprint modulators and promote the development of integrated silicon photonics.     

Magneto-optical nonreciprocal phase shift in garnet/silicon-on-insulator waveguides

We demonstrate the integration of a single-crystal magneto-optical film onto thin silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguides by use of direct wafer bonding. Simulations show that the high confinement and asymmetric structure of SOI allows an enhancement of approximately 3x over the nonreciprocal phase shift achieved in previous designs; this value is confirmed by our measurements. Our structure will allow compact magneto-optical nonreciprocal devices, such as isolators, integrated on a silicon waveguiding platform.     

Semiconductor optical amplifiers at 2.0‐µm wavelength on silicon

A semiconductor optical amplifier at 2.0‐µm wavelength is reported. This device is heterogeneously integrated by directly bonding an InP‐based active region to a silicon substrate. It is therefore compatible with low‐cost and high‐volume fabrication infrastructures, and can be efficiently coupled to other active and passive devices in a photonic integrated circuit. On‐chip gain larger than 13 dB is demonstrated at 20 °C, with a 3‐dB bandwidth of ∼75 nm centered at 2.01 µm. No saturation of the gain is observed for an on‐chip input power up to 0 dBm, and on‐chip gain is observed for temperatures up to at least 50 °C. This technology paves the way to chip‐level applications for optical communication, industrial or medical monitoring, and non‐linear optics.

     

Electrically pumped 1550 nm single mode III‐V‐on‐silicon laser with resonant grating cavity mirrors

This article presents a novel III‐V on silicon laser. This work exploits the phenomenon that a passive silicon cavity, side‐coupled to a III‐V waveguide, will provide high and narrow‐band reflectivity into the III‐V waveguide: the resonant mirror. This results in an electrically pumped laser with a threshold current of 4 mA and a side‐mode suppression ratio up to 48 dB.

     

Monolithic silicon‐micromachined free‐space optical interferometers onchip

The integration of microactuators within a silicon photonic chip gave rise to the field of optical micro‐electro‐mechanical systems (MEMS) that was originally driven by the telecommunication market. Following the latter's bubble collapse in the beginning of the third millennium, new directions of research with considerable momentum appeared focusing on the realization and applications of miniaturized instrumentation in biology, chemistry, physics and materials science. At the heart of these applications light interferometry is a key optical phenomenon, in which miniaturized scanning interferometers are the manipulating optical devices. Monolithic free‐space optical interferometers realized on a silicon chip take advantage of the recent progress in the microfabrication technology that is enabling accurate control of the etching depth, the aspect ratio, the verticality and the curvature of the etched surfaces. The fabrication technology, the library of micro‐optical and mechanical components, the realized architectures and their characterization are described in detail in this review, followed by a discussion of the foreseen challenges.

     

Ultrafast on‐Chip Remotely‐Triggered All‐Optical Switching Based on Epsilon‐Near‐Zero Nanocomposites

On‐chip‐triggered all‐optical switching is a key component of ultrahigh‐speed and ultrawide‐band information processing chips. 1 - 4 This switching technique, the operating states of which are triggered by a remote control light, paves the way for the realization of cascaded and complicated logic processing circuits and quantum solid chips. Here, a strategy is reported to realize on‐chip remotely‐triggered, ultralow‐power, ultrafast, and nanoscale all‐optical switching with high switching efficiency in integrated photonic circuits. It is based on control‐light induced dynamic modulation of the coupling properties of two remotely‐coupled silicon photonic crystal nanocavities, and extremely large optical nonlinearity enhancement associated with epsilon‐near‐zero multi‐component nanocomposite achieved through dispersion engineering. Compared with previous reports of on‐chip direct‐triggered all‐optical switching, the threshold control intensity, 560 kW/cm², is reduced by four orders of magnitude, while maintaining ultrafast switching time of 15 ps. This not only provides a strategy to construct photonic materials with ultrafast and large third‐order nonlinearity, but also offers an on‐chip platform for the fundamental study of nonlinear optics.     

硅基光子集成研究进展

报道了国际上关于硅基光子集成的最新研究进展和本课题组在该领域的研究成果,包括对一些光收发模块、III-V族/硅基激光器等集成器件的结构改进和工艺的探索,展示了兼容互补金属氧化物半导体工艺的硅基光子集成在信息技术领域中的巨大前景.可以预见,硅基光子集成已成为硅光子学的主要研究内容,硅光子学及硅基光子集成的发展目标是趋向更高速率、更低功耗及更大集成密度.     

硅键合SOI平面光波导探索

本文分析了ＳＩＭＯＸ／ＳＯＩ和ＤＷＢ／ＳＯＩ结构的性能特点。尝试用ＤＷＢ／ＳＯＩ材料制备不同波导层厚度的平面光波导样品，并测试了１．１５μｍ和１．５２３μｍ激光的ＴＥ和ＴＭ模的传输损耗。１．５２３μｍ光的ＴＥ模的最小传输损耗已达０．２７ｄＢ／ｃｍ。说明ＤＷＢ／ＳＯＩ材料是一种有潜力的光波导材料。     

Electric feed-through for vacuum package using double-side anodic bonding of silicon-on-insulator wafer

It is not easy to hermetically seal using anodic bonding on both sides of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. Taking this into consideration, we suggest an electrical feed-through method for anodic bonding on the both sides of SOI wafer. The suggested method is illustrated on the basis of vacuum package of a conventional two-dimensional (2-D) micro-scanner. Electric feed-through for anodic bonding and electrical interconnection through the glass/silicon interface to the 2-D micro-scanner in the package are presented. The proposed electrical feed-through method is investigated by characterizing bonding current. The bonding current characteristics show that the electric feed-through has formed electric field distribution required for double-side anodic bonding. The operation characteristics of packaged 2-D micro-scanner are also investigated, which show successfully performed electric interconnection between inside and outside of the package. The proposed method is an effective technique for double-side anodic bonding based package not only for micro-scanner but also for different mechanical oscillators such as accelerometer, gyroscope and etc.     

Silicon photonics: from a microresonator perspective

Silicon photonics leverages the optical, electrical and material properties of silicon and the mature complementary metal‐oxide semiconductor (CMOS) nanofabrication technique to develop on‐chip photonic integration, which has been making significant impacts in various frontiers including next‐generation optical communications networks, on‐chip optical interconnects for high‐speed energy‐efficient computing and biosensing. Among many optical structures fabricated on silicon chips, microresonators due to their high‐Q resonances and small footprints play important roles in various devices including lasers, filters, modulators, switches, routers, delays, detectors and sensors. This paper reviews from a microresonator perspective some of the latest progress in the field, summarizes design considerations in various applications and points out key challenges and potentials.     

Additive advantage in characteristics of MIMCAPs on flexible silicon (100) fabric with release‐first process

We report the inherent increase in capacitance per unit planar area of state‐of‐the art high‐κ integrated metal/insulator/metal capacitors (MIMCAPs) fabricated on flexible silicon fabric with release‐first process. We methodically study and show that our approach to transform bulk silicon (100) into a flexible fabric adds an inherent advantage of enabling higher integration density dynamic random access memory (DRAM) on the same chip area. Our approach is to release an ultra‐thin silicon (100) fabric (25 µm thick) from the bulk silicon wafer, then build MIMCAPs using sputtered aluminium electrodes and successive atomic layer depositions (ALD) without break‐ing the vacuum of a high‐κ aluminium oxide sandwiched between two tantalum nitride layers. This result shows that we can obtain flexible electronics on silicon without sacrificing the high density integration aspects and also utilize the non‐planar geometry associated with fabrication process to obtain a higher integration density compared to bulk silicon integration due to an increased normalized capacitance per unit planar area. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Silicone oxidation for a‐Si:H passivation of wafers bonded to glass

A possible scenario for wafer‐based silicon photovoltaics is the processing of solar modules starting from thin silicon wafers bonded to glass. However, interactions between the adhesive used for bonding and the solar cell processing can affect the surface passivation of the bonded wafer and decrease cell performances. A method that suppresses these interactions and leads to state‐of‐the‐art a‐Si:H surface passivation is presented in this Letter. The method is based on an increase of the surface cross‐linking of a silicone adhesive by means of an O₂ plasma and it is successfully tested on three different silicones. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Opportunities for wavelength conversion with on‐chip diamond ring resonators

Recent progress in the fabrication of high‐quality synthetic diamond and of diamond waveguide structures has enabled photonics researchers to start exploiting the unique optical properties of diamond for various applications. In this article the promise of on‐chip diamond ring resonators for wavelength conversion based on Kerr and Raman‐resonant four‐wave mixing is numerically demonstrated. After examining to what extent both dispersion‐engineered phase‐matching and “automatic” quasi‐phase‐matching can be established in diamond ring converters, it is shown that such a “double‐matching” approach can yield high conversion efficiencies for a wide range of wavelengths in the near‐infrared/mid‐infrared domain, as well as in the ultraviolet/visible domain.     

On‐chip silicon 8‐channel hybrid (de)multiplexer enabling simultaneous mode‐ and polarization‐division‐multiplexing

An 8‐channel hybrid (de)multiplexer to simultaneously achieve mode‐ and polarization‐division‐(de)multiplexing is proposed and demonstrated experimentally on a silicon‐on‐insulator platform to improve the link capacity of an on‐chip optical interconnect. The present hybrid (de)multiplexer has four channels for each polarization. A polarization beam splitter based on a three‐waveguide coupler is used to combine/separate the fundamental modes of TE‐ and TM‐polarizations (TE₀ and TM₀). Six asymmetric directional couplers are cascaded for (de)multiplexing the high‐order modes (TE₁, TE₂, TE₃, TM₁, TM₂, and TM₃). The experimental results show all eight channels have low loss and low crosstalk (<−10 dB) over a ∼ 30 nm wavelength range.     

Metal bonding strength in low‐temperature processed titanium using atomic force microscopy with single‐wall carbon nanotube tip

We report the development of a Ti–Ti bonding process at a low bonding temperature below 200 °C using chemically surface‐activated Ti thin films and a reliable evaluation method for measuring the Ti–Ti bond strength by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM). Using Ti as an interlayer enables void‐free bonding because Ti exhibits fast diffusion and oxide solubility. On the other hand, wafer bonding is an important processing step for 3D circuit integration that requires a high reliability of the process. However, the reliability of bonding‐strength values obtained by employing conventional measurement devices is limited by comparably large measurement errors and restricted the availability of suitable sample material. In this study, the use of AFM to measure the bonding strength is proposed. The interfacial bonding properties depend on the Ti deposition parameters. A bonding temperature of 200 °C was found to be appropriate for the development of a low bonding temperature wafer‐bonding process. The pretreatment methods like plasma activation and chemical activation at 200 °C result in a Ti bonding strength of approximately 8.22 J/m², sufficient for applications in 3D circuit integration. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)