Intimate monolithic integration of chip-scale photonic circuits

Abstract

Abstract-In this paper, we introduce a robust monolithic integration technique for fabricating photonic integrated circuits comprising optoelectronic devices (e.g., surface-illuminated photodetectors, waveguide quantum-well modulators, etc.) that are made of completely separate epitaxial structures and possibly reside at different locations across the wafer as necessary. Our technique is based on the combination of multiple crystal growth steps, judicious placement of epitaxial etch-stop layers, a carefully designed etch sequence, and self-planarization and passivation steps to compactly integrate optoelectronic devices. This multigrowth integration technique is broadly applicable to most III-V materials and can be exploited to fabricate sophisticated, highly integrated, multifunctional photonic integrated circuits on a single substrate. As a successful demonstration of this technique, we describe integrated photonic switches that consume only a 300 × 300 µm footprint and incorporate InGaAs photodetector mesas and InGaAsP/InP quantum-well modulator waveguides separated by 50 µm on an InP substrate. These switches perform electrically-reconfigurable optically-controlled wavelength conversion at multi-Gb/s data rates over the entire center telecommunication wavelength band.

Nanocrystalline Si-based metal-oxide-semiconductor photodetectors

“…Since the observation of light emission from nanostructured Si materials, all-Si OEIC has been the goal of many researches [3,[5][6][7]. The photodetectors in OEIC usually have pn or pin junction diode structures or bipolar transistor structure fabricated using standard CMOS technology [8][9][10][11].…”

Optical bistable switching with symmetrically configured SOAs in reverse bias

“…The simulations show that for switching at a few GHz-capacitance and inductance values around tens of femtofarads and tens of nanohenries respectively are necessary. These capacitance and inductance values have been demonstrated in current integration technologies [10][11][12].…”

“…By defining that the voltage across SOA 1 is 90% of its final value, the hysteresis width will increase by a factor of three when the inductance increases from 0.1 to 1.5 lH. Nevertheless, the oscillation problem originated by the series inductance can be partially solved by using bypass capacitors to supply the necessary energy to switch the output of the circuit [10]. Finally, notice that the change in series resistance is not so significant, even though it can produce a slight improvement, as show in Figure 7(d).…”

“…It can be seen from the figures that even though the resonant frequencies are reduced the bands are still maintained. The proposed antennas are compact and have a wider bandwidth compared with antennas reported in the literature [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. The efficiencies of the antennas designed were measured using the Wheeler Cap method.…”

On‐Chip Integration of Functional Hybrid Materials and Components in Nanophotonics and Optoelectronics

“…Sabnis et al proposed and demonstrated an improved version of multistep selective area growth (MSAG) monolithic integration technique [13] . This approach mainly consists of fi ve steps:…”