A Review of the Building Blocks of Silicon Photonics: From Fabrication Perspective

Abstract

Silicon photonics is a disruptive semiconductor technology that taps into the extraordinary properties of light while taking full advantage of the already matured CMOS processes developed in the semiconductor industry. However, just like electronic industry in the 1970s, currently, Silicon Photonics is in its infancy. The fundamental building blocks of silicon photonics such as waveguides, lasers, modulators, etc. are yet to be fully optimized for low-cost-mass-manufacturing. In this paper, the current state-of-the-art related to developing and optimizing these aforementioned key components will be presented. The challenges of process integration regarding Silicon photonics will also be discussed.

Monolithic silicon avalanche photodetector utilizing surface state defects operating at 1550 nm

“…Silicon photonics has significant economic advantages over other photonic platforms, such as III-V compounds and polymers, motivating both academia and industry to invest efforts in the development of silicon optoelectronics technology. [1][2][3] Silicon photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are designed to manipulate light in silicon, supporting functionality such as light generation, modulation, routing, processing, and detection. 4 Despite the cost advantages of silicon, its indirect bandgap of 1.1 eV results in very poor optical absorption at the conventional telecommunication wavelengths region.…”