Silicon Lasers and Photonic Integrated Circuits

The chapter discusses photonic integration on silicon from the material property and device points of view and reviews the numerous efforts including bandgap engineering, Raman scattering, monolithic heteroepitaxy and hybrid integration to realize efficie

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Silicon Lasers and Photonic Integrated Circuits Di Liang, Alexander W. Fang, and John E. Bowers

Abstract The chapter discusses photonic integration on silicon from the material property and device points of view and reviews the numerous efforts including bandgap engineering, Raman scattering, monolithic heteroepitaxy and hybrid integration to realize efficient light emission, amplification and lasing on silicon. The state of the art technologies for high-speed modulation are also discussed in order to unfold a picture of future transmitters on silicon.

This chapter discusses photonic integration on silicon from the material property and device points of view. The progressive growth of silicon-based electronic integrated circuits (ICs) has been governed by Moore’s Law and historicized by the roadmap of conventional electronic ICs. Silicon is arguably the primary host material platform for future photonic integrated circuits (PICs) as well, particularly for applications beyond conventional fiber-optical telecommunications. Until recently, the lack of a laser source on silicon has been seen as the key hurdle limiting the usefulness and complexity of silicon photonic integrated circuits. In this chapter, we review the numerous efforts including bandgap engineering, Raman scattering, monolithic heteroepitaxy and hybrid integration to realize efficient light emission, amplification and lasing on silicon. The state of the art technologies for high-speed modulation are also discussed in order to unfold a picture of future transmitters on silicon.

Di Liang (¬)  John E. Bowers Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of California (UCSB), Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA e-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Alexander W. Fang Aurrion, 130 Robin Hill Rd, Suite 300, Goleta, CA 93117, USA e-mail: [email protected]

H. Venghaus, N. Grote (eds.), Fibre Optic Communication – Key Devices Optical Sciences 161. DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-20517-0_14, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

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14.1 Silicon as a Platform for PICs An integrated circuit (IC) is a miniaturized electronic circuit that consists of a large number of individual components, fabricated side-by-side on a common substrate and wired together to perform a particular circuit function. In 1943, the first working transistor was demonstrated [1], and 11 years later, the invention of the IC began a new era. The inherent advantages in cost and performance have been the driving force in the IC industry since then. Moore’s Law has set the progressive pace in these advances. Gordon Moore foresaw exponential growth, with the number of transistors on an IC doubling approximately every two years [2], as illustrated in Fig. 14.1a. Large-scale integration and mass production also resulted in the enormous reduction of the chip size and system cost, and tremendous improvement in performance and applications. The first UNIVAC computer in 1951 weighed 13 metric tons and occupied more than 35 m2 of floor space with a clock sp

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