Near- and mid- infrared group IV photonics

Abstract

Silicon photonics is seen by many to be the solution to the capacity crunch faced by the communications industry. Global sales of silicon photonics products are predicted to be reach US$1 billion by 2020 [1]. The key factors in the predicted success of this technology are integration, and the ability to mass produce products at a low cost, due to its compatibility with CMOS electronics technology. Silicon photonics circuits typically operate at a wavelength of 1.55 µm due to the low loss of optical fibres at this wavelength. To this end, this presentation discusses a novel method of growing single crystal, tuneable composition silicon-germanium-on-insulator by rapid melt growth, with the aim of fabricating extremely low power electro-absorption modulators at a range of wavelengths close to 1.55 µm, enabling dramatic expansion of datalink capacity through the use of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) [2]. The range of localised uniform composition SiGe layers are formed using only a single growth and single anneal step, as shown in Fig.1.

Additionally, the extension of silicon photonics into the mid-infrared wavelengths (2 µm and beyond) is discussed. Some basic passive components required for optical circuits are demonstrated, including multi-mode interferometers (MMI), as shown in Fig. 2. Furthermore, the feasibility of fabricating active devices in a Ge-on-Si platform is discussed [3].

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Identifiers

ORCID for Thalía Domínguez Bucio: orcid.org/0000-0002-3664-1403

ORCID for Miloš Nedeljković: orcid.org/0000-0002-9170-7911

ORCID for Goran Mashanovich: orcid.org/0000-0003-2954-5138

ORCID for Frederic Gardes: orcid.org/0000-0003-1400-3272

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