Abstract:In the paper, we review our work on heterogeneous III-V-on-silicon photonic components and circuits for applications in optical communication and sensing. We elaborate on the integration strategy and describe a broad range of devices realized on this platform covering a wavelength range from 850 nm to 3.85 μm.

We present the first III-V opto-electronic components transfer printed on and coupled to a silicon photonic integrated circuit. Thin InPbased membranes are transferred to an SOI waveguide circuit, after which a single-spatial-mode broadband light source is fabricated. The process flow to create transfer print-ready coupons is discussed. Aqueous FeCl 3 at 5 • C was found to be the best release agent in combination with the photoresist anchoring structures that were used. A thin DVS-BCB layer provides a strong bond, accommodating the post-processing of the membranes. The resulting optically pumped LED has a 3 dB bandwidth of 130 nm, comparable to devices realized using a traditional die-to-wafer bonding method.

Silicon is now firmly established as a high performance photonic material. Its only weakness is the lack of a native electrically driven light emitter that operates CW at room temperature, exhibits a narrow linewidth in the technologically important 1300-1600 nm wavelength window, is small and operates with low power consumption. Here, an electrically pumped all-silicon nano light source around 1300-1600 nm range is demonstrated at room temperature. Using hydrogen plasma treatment, nano-scale optically active defects are introduced into silicon, which then feed the photonic crystal nanocavity to enhance the electrically driven emission in a device via Purcell effect. A narrow (∆λ = 0.5 nm) emission line at 1515 nm wavelength with a power density of 0.4 mW/cm 2 is observed, which represents the highest spectral power density ever reported from any silicon emitter. A number of possible improvements are also discussed, that make this scheme a very promising light source for optical interconnects and other important silicon photonics applications.

In this article we describe a cost-effective approach for hybrid laser integration, in which vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) are passively-aligned and flip-chip bonded to a Si photonic integrated circuit (PIC), with a tilt-angle optimized for optical-insertion into standard grating-couplers. A tilt-angle of 10° is achieved by controlling the reflow of the solder ball deposition used for the electrical-contacting and mechanical-bonding of the VCSEL to the PIC. After flip-chip integration, the VCSEL-to-PIC insertion loss is -11.8 dB, indicating an excess coupling penalty of -5.9 dB, compared to Fibre-to-PIC coupling. Finite difference time domain simulations indicate that the penalty arises from the relatively poor match between the VCSEL mode and the grating-coupler.