Silicon Nanocrystals as an Enabling Material for Silicon Photonics

Abstract

| Silicon nanocrystals (Si-nc) is an enabling material for silicon photonics, which is no longer an emerging field of research but an available technology with the first commercial products available on the market. In this paper, properties and applications of Si-nc in silicon photonics are reviewed. After a brief history of silicon photonics, the limitations of silicon as a light emitter are discussed and the strategies to overcome them are briefly treated, with particular attention to the recent achievements. Emphasis is given to the visible optical gain properties of Si-nc and to its sensitization effect on Er ions to achieve infrared light amplification. The state of the art of Si-nc applied in a few photonic components is reviewed and discussed. The possibility to exploit Si-nc for solar cells is also presented. In addition, nonlinear optical effects, which enable fast all-optical switches, are described.

Nonlinear Group IV photonics based on silicon and germanium: from near-infrared to mid-infrared

“…Silicon nano-crystals in silicon dioxide and silicon nitride have also been investigated as a nonlinear material, exhibiting higher nonlinear indices than crystalline silicon by an order of magnitude or more [36][37][38][39][40][41]. The values of n 2 , β TPA , and nonlinear FOM are also highly variable, if silicon excess, annealing temperature and wavelength change.…”

“…Materials engineering further enhanced the nonlinearity, e.g., in amorphous silicon under certain deposition conditions [31][32][33][34][35] and in Si-rich silicon oxide (SRO) and nitride (SRN) based on the formation of silicon nano-crystals [36][37][38][39][40][41].…”

Silicon Photonics: A Review of Recent Literature

“…These are: The IEEE Proceedings issue [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] contains significant papers on "Silicon photonics: CMOS going optical", "Device requirements for optical interconnects to silicon chips", "On-chip optical interconnect", "Recent progress in high-speed silicon-based optical modulators", "Cascaded microresonator-based matrix switch for silicon on-chip optical interconnection", "High-performance quantum dot lasers and integrated optoelectronics on Si", "Silicon nanocrystals as an enabling material for silicon photonics", "Photonic properties of Er-doped crystalline silicon", "Silicon-Germanium nanostructures for light emitters and on-chip optical interconnects", "Silicon organic hybrid technology-a platform for practical nonlinear optics", "Negative index materials with gain media for fast optical modulation", "Si photonics and fiber to the home" and "Computer systems based on silicon photonic interconnects". These thirteen authoritative articles present a beautiful "snapshot" of where we are today.…”

Analysing radiative and non-radiative recombination in InAs QDs on Si for integrated laser applications

“…Many approaches have been investigated; including rare earth doped Si, stimulated Raman scattering, nanostructure Si and heterogeneous/monolithic integration of III-V and Si [2][3][4][5][6]. Several successful demonstrations of room temperature lasing have been reported including Si Raman lasers, hybrid Si lasers and III-V and Ge lasers grown on Si [3,4]. However, each of these methods still requires significant development in order to provide a manufacturable solution.…”