Photonics 1.

Photonics is an area of study that involves the use of radiant energy (such as light), whose fundamental element is the photon . Photonic applications use the photon in the same way that electronic applications use the electron . Devices that run on light have a number of advantages over those that use electricity. Light travels at about 10 times the speed that electricity does, which means (among other things) that data transmitted photonically can travel long distances in a fraction of the time. Furthermore, visible-light and infrared ( IR ) beams, unlike electric currents, pass through each other without interacting, so they don't cause interference. A single optical fibre has the capacity to carry three million telephone calls simultaneously.
2.The science of photonics includes the generation, emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, anddetection/sensing of light. The term photonics thereby emphasizes that photons are neither particles nor waves they have both particle and wave nature. It covers all technical applications of light over the whole spectrum from ultraviolet over the visible to the near-, mid- and far-infrared. The term photonics developed as an outgrowth of the first practical semiconductor light emitters invented in the early 1960s and optical fibers developed in the 1970s.
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Use of silicon in photonics

1.For applications in microelectronics, an extremely powerful technology platform based on silicon chips has been developed in the recent decades. This is now the basis of complex microprocessors, large memory circuits, and other digital and analog electronics. With the introduction of the silicon-on-insulator technology [3] it has been demonstrated that photonicfunctions can be integrated into this technology platform, so that silicon-based photonic integrated circuits became possible. Here, different kinds of optical components can be connected with each other using silicon waveguides [1]. Such circuits could be used e.g. to establish very fast communication between circuit boards, between chips on a board, or even within single chips, e.g. connecting different cores of a microprocessor. There is a strong need for such fast communication links, because the rapid progress of microprocessors may soon be severely limited by the transmission bandwidth capabilities of electronic connections, made e.g. of copper. Optical data transmission allows for much higher data rates and would at the same time eliminate problems resulting from electromagnetic interference. The technology may also be useful for other areas ofoptical communications, such as fiber to the home. Silicon photonics can also be considered from the viewpoint of photonics, which is so far normally based on other materials. (Silica = amorphous SiO2 is common in photonics, e.g. in silica fibers, but not elementary silicon.) The implementation of silicon-based photonic devices, maybe even electrically pumped silicon lasers and silicon amplifiers, could possibly lead to much smaller and much cheaper photonic devices, making

accessible a range of applications which so far have been impossible already for reasons of too high cost.

Technological Challenges
Although the possible merits of silicon-based photonics are huge, there are also very substantial challenges for such a technology: Having an indirect bandgap, silicon is a very inefficient light emitter. Although various tricks have been developed to get around this, the laseror amplifier performance of silicon-based devices cannot compete with that for other approaches, based on, e.g., gallium arsenide or indium phosphide. The bandgap of silicon is also larger than desirable, making it impossible to detect light in the telecom spectral regions around 1.5 and 1.3 m. Silicon has no
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nonlinearity,

making

it

impossible

to

realize electro-optic

modulators with this material. The heat dissipated by a laser source on a chip might well be more than is convenient. Optical connections often require very precise alignment, which demands improved alignment technologies for efficient mass production. It is possible to fabricate hybrid devices where the photonic functions are provided by structures made of IIIV semiconductors (with a direct bandgap and electro-optic properties), such as indium phosphide, and these are placed on a silicon chip containing the bulk of the electronic components. One class of techniques is based on epitaxial regrowth procedures, which are complicated and often greatly reduce the yield. For that reason, hybrid devices tend to be expensive and are strongly limited in complexity. Another approach is to apply a sophisticated bonding process to combine a silicon chip containing waveguides with an indium phosphide chip providing the optical gain [17]. Still, all-silicon solutions, arising from the siliconization of photonics, would probably be more suitable for widespread application.

State of Research
The following paragraphs briefly describe the current state of research concerning basic building blocks of silicon photonics: For guiding light in waveguides, silicon is suitable [1,2]. There are e.g. rib waveguides with oxide cladding, exhibiting propagation losses of well below 1 dB/cm. The transparency range of silicon extends from 1.1 m to the far-infrared region. The tight mode confinement allows sharp bends without excessive bend losses. It also enables the use of nonlinearities for certain functions, e.g. amplification via four-wave mixing. Efficient coupling to single-mode fibers, having much larger effective mode areas, is possible with nanotapers [7].

For laser light sources and for amplifiers, the indirect bandgap of silicon is hardly usable. Some progress has been achieved with porous silicon and with silicon nanoparticles in silica, but the performance achieved can not compete with that of e.g. indiumphosphide-based devices. However, silicon allows for efficient Raman amplification, because the Raman gain coefficient of silicon is very high and the waveguides confine the mode to a very small area. Although a Raman laser [8,18,22] or amplifier [21] still requires an optical pump source, it can be useful for accessing longer wavelength regions, and possibly even to generate multiple wavelengths [22]. Another approach is to provide the active function in a IIIV semiconductor material (see above), which is bonded to a silicon waveguide structure; the evanescent field of the silicon waveguide can then be strong enough for efficient amplification [17]. Also, it is possible to fabricate monolithic structures with germanium grown directly on silicon ( Ge-on-Si technology), where doped germanium serves as the laser material [25].

Silicon-based optical modulators can be realized with MachZehnder interferometers and phase modulation via a change in carrier density [12]: injecting carriers with an electrode changes the refractive index in one arm of the interferometer, which translates the phase change into a change in power transmission. Another possibility is to use a micro-ring resonator [19,24]. Transmission bandwidths of multiple gigabits per second can be achieved with such devices. Very compact and energy-efficient devices can also be realized as electroabsorption modulators made with epitaxial germanium on silicon [23].

A silicon photodetector (photodiode) is normally sensitive only for light with wavelengths below 1.1 m, corresponding to the bandgap. Photodetectors for telecommunication wavelengths around 1.5 or 1.3 m are possible with silicongermanium alloys (SiGe) [13]. Problems arise from the resulting lattice mismatch, which leads to crystal defects. It is clear that an enormous amount of work, corresponding to huge capital investments, is still required before silicon photonics can be established as a key technology. However, the potential merits motivate big players such as Intel to pursue this development seriously. If it is successful, it can lead to a very powerful technology with huge benefits for photonics and microelectronics and their applications.

2. Silicon photonics is the study and application of photonic systems which use silicon as an optical
medium. The silicon is usually patterned with sub-micrometre precision, [4] intomicrophotonic components. These operate in the infrared, most commonly at the 1.55 [1] micrometre wavelength used by most fiber optic telecommunication systems. The silicon typically lies on top of a layer of silica in what (by analogy with a similar construction in microelectronics) is [4][5] known as silicon on insulator (SOI). Silicon photonic devices can be made using existing semiconductor fabrication techniques, and because silicon is already used as the substrate for most integrated circuits, it is possible to create hybrid devices in which the optical and electronic components are integrated onto a single
[1][2][3][4][5]

microchip. Consequently, silicon photonics is being actively researched by many electronics manufacturers including IBM and Intel, as well as by academic research groups such as that of Prof. Michal Lipson, who see it is a means for keeping on track with Moore's Law, by using optical [6][7] interconnects to provide faster data transfer both between and within microchips. The propagation of light through silicon devices is governed by a range of nonlinear optical phenomena including the Kerr effect, the Raman effect, two photon absorption and [8] interactions betweenphotons and free charge carriers. The presence of nonlinearity is of [9] fundamental importance, as it enables light to interact with light, thus permitting applications such as wavelength conversion and all-optical signal routing, in addition to the passive transmission of light. Silicon waveguides are also of great academic interest, due to their ability to support exotic nonlinear optical phenomena such as soliton propagation

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Physical properties[edit source | editbeta]

Optical guiding and dispersion tailoring[edit source | editbeta]
Silicon is transparent to infrared light with wavelengths above about 1.1 micrometres. Silicon also [39] has a very high refractive index, of about 3.5. The tight optical confinement provided by this high index allows for microscopic optical waveguides, which may have cross-sectional dimensions of only [8] a few hundred nanometers. This is substantially less than the wavelength of the light itself, and is analogous to a subwavelength-diameter optical fibre. Single mode propagation can be [8] achieved, thus (like single-mode optical fiber) eliminating the problem of modal dispersion. The strong dielectric boundary effects that result from this tight confinement substantially alter the optical dispersion relation. By selecting the waveguide geometry, it possible to tailor the dispersion to have desired properties, which is of crucial importance to applications requiring [8] ultrashort pulses. In particular, the group velocity dispersion (that is, the extent to which group velocity varies with wavelength) can be closely controlled. In bulk silicon at 1.55 micrometres, the group velocity dispersion (GVD) is normal in that pulses with longer wavelengths travel with higher group velocity than those with shorter wavelength. By selecting a suitable waveguide geometry, however, it is possible to reverse this, and achieve anomalous GVD, in which pulses with shorter [40][41] wavelengths travel faster. Anomalous dispersion is significant, as it is a prerequisite [42] for soliton propagation, and modulational instability. In order for the silicon photonic components to remain optically independent from the bulk silicon of the wafer on which they are fabricated, it is necessary to have a layer of intervening material. This is usually silica, which has a much lower refractive index (of about 1.44 in the wavelength region of [43] interest ), and thus light at the silicon-silica interface will (like light at the silicon-air interface) undergo total internal reflection, and remain in the silicon. This construct is known as silicon on [4][5] insulator. It is named after the technology of silicon on insulator in electronics, whereby components are built upon a layer of insulator in order to reduce parasitic capacitance and so improve [44] performance.
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Kerr nonlinearity[edit source | editbeta]

Silicon has a focusing Kerr nonlinearity, in that the refractive index increases with optical [8] intensity. This effect is not especially strong in bulk silicon, but it can be greatly enhanced by using a [10] silicon waveguide to concentrate light into a very small cross-sectional area. This allows nonlinear optical effects to be seen at low powers. The nonlinearity can be enhanced further by using aslot waveguide, in which the high refractive index of the silicon is used to confine light into a central region [45] filled with a strongly nonlinear polymer.

Kerr nonlinearity underlies a wide variety of optical phenomena. One example is four wave mixing, [46] which has been applied in silicon to realise both optical parametric amplification and parametric [35] wavelength conversion. Kerr nonlinearity can also cause modulational instability, in which it reinforces deviations from an optical waveform, leading to the generation of spectral-sidebands and [47] the eventual breakup of the waveform into a train of pulses. Another example (as described below) is soliton propagation.

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Two-photon absorption[edit source | editbeta]

Silicon exhibits two-photon absorption (TPA), in which a pair of photons can act to excite an electron[8] hole pair. This process is related to the Kerr effect, and by analogy with complex refractive index, [8] can be thought of as the imaginary-part of a complex Kerr nonlinearity. At the 1.55 micrometre [48] telecommunication wavelength, this imaginary part is approximately 10% of the real part. The influence of TPA is highly disruptive, as it both wastes light, and generates unwanted heat. It can be mitigated, however, either by switching to longer wavelengths (at which the TPA to Kerr ratio [50] drops), or by using slot waveguides (in which the internal nonlinear material has a lower TPA to [45] Kerr ratio). Alternatively, the energy lost through TPA can be partially recovered (as is described [51] below) by extracting it from the generated charge carriers.
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Free charge carrier interactions[edit source | editbeta]

The free charge carriers within silicon can both absorb photons and change its refractive [52] index. This is particularly significant at high intensities and for long durations, due to the carrier concentration being built up by TPA. The influence of free charge carriers is often (but not always) unwanted, and various means have been proposed to remove them. One such scheme is [53] toimplant the silicon with helium in order to enhance carrier recombination. A suitable choice of geometry can also be used to reduce the carrier lifetime. Rib waveguides (in which the waveguides consist of thicker regions in a wider layer of silicon) enhance both the carrier recombination at the [54] silica-silicon interface and the diffusion of carriers from the waveguide core. A more advanced scheme for carrier removal is to integrate the waveguide into the intrinsic region of a PIN diode, which is reverse biased so that the carriers are attracted away from the waveguide [55] core. A more sophisticated scheme still, is to use the diode as part of a circuit in which voltage and current are out of phase, thus allowing power to be extracted from the [51] waveguide. The source of this power is the light lost to two photon absorption, and so by recovering some of it, the net loss (and the rate at which heat is generated) can be reduced. As is mentioned above, free charge carrier effects can also be used constructively, in order to [18][19][20] modulate the light.

Second-order nonlinearity[edit source | editbeta]

Second-order nonlinearities cannot exist in bulk silicon because of the centrosymmetry of its crystalline structure. By applying strain however, the inversion symmetry of silicon can be broken. [56] This can be obtained for example by depositing a silicon nitride layer on a thin silicon film. Secondorder nonlinear phenomena can be exploited for optical modulation, spontaneous parametric downconversion, parametric amplification, ultra-fast optical signal processing and mid-infrared generation. Efficient nonlinear conversion however requires phase matching between the optical waves involved. Second-order nonlinear waveguides based on strained silicon can achieve phase [57] matching by dispersion-engineering. So far, however, experimental demonstrations are based only [58] on designs which are not phase matched. It has been shown that phase matching can be obtained

as well in silicon double slot waveguides coated with a highly nonlinear organic cladding [60] periodically strained silicon waveguides.

[59]

and in

The Raman effect

Silicon exhibits the Raman effect, in which a photon is exchanged for a photon with a slightly different energy, corresponding to an excitation or a relaxation of the material. Silicon's Raman transition is dominated by a single, very narrow frequency peak, which is problematic for broadband phenomena [8] such as Raman amplification, but is beneficial for narrowband devices such asRaman lasers. Early studies of Raman amplification and Raman lasers started at UCLA which led to demonstration of net gain Silicon Raman amplifiers and silicon pulsed Raman laser with fiber resonator (Optics express [17] 2004). Consequently, all-silicon Raman lasers have been fabricated in 2005.

History of Silicon photonics (pdf-5730-1) the dominance of silicon as the semiconductor of choice for electronics applications eventually led to the investigation of silicon photonic circuits, primarily because of the potential attraction of integration with electronics in a cost effective manner. Such research began in the mid 1980s and has continued ever since. The global research effort was modest at first, but has increased rapidly in recent years. What deterred more significant progress during the early years was that firstly the indirect bandgap of silicon means that light emission from silicon is very inefficient, and non-traditional techniques must be investigated if a silicon laser is to be realised. Secondly, the centro-symmetric crystal structure of silicon means that it does not exhibit a linear electro-optic (Pockels) effect. Since this is the traditional means of implementing an optical modulator in an optical waveguide based device, modulation of the refractive index of silicon must be carried out in another way. This paper discusses the early research on silicon photonics from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. Whilst a considerable amount of work had been carried in related materials (for example Si3N4[2-5], SiON [6-14], SiO2[15-19], SiGe [20-24], and SiC [25-27]) this paper focuses on single-crystal silicon devices and the ultimate goal of monolithic silicon integration. Whilst these other materials are compatible with standard CMOS

technology, they potentially add complexity to the processing. Therefore the goal of this paper is to summarise the highlights not only of the advancements made towards realising an integrated, monolithic silicon optical circuit, but of the individual photonic components that comprise it. A brief history of optical integration in silicon is given first. This is followed by a discussion of several of the important components that would comprise an integrated device or circuit, these being waveguides, modulators, switches, and detectors.