Photonic Integrated Circuits Using Heterogeneous Integration on Silicon

Author(s)
T. Komljenovic, D. Huang, P. Pintus, M. A. Tran, M. L. Davenport, and J. E. Bowers
Publication Image
Evolution of photonic integration in terms of the number of devices in a single PIC. Silicon photonic integration (red circle) represents the “passive” integration without an on-chip laser solution; InP integration (blue squares) and heterogeneous silicon integration (green triangle) are solutions with on-chip lasers.
Publication Date
Publication Type
Journal
Journal/Conference Name
Proceedings of the IEEE
Indexing
Vol 106, No 12, 2246-2257

Heterogeneous silicon photonics using wafer bonding is reaching maturity with commercial products for the data center market being shipped in volume. Here we give an overview of recent research in the area showing record device performance by using the best of both worlds: III-V for light generation and Si for guiding the light. Utilizing the flexibility of the heterogeneous silicon platform, narrow-linewidth widely tunable lasers as well as fully integrated mode locked lasers with record pulse powers and pulse duration were demonstrated. The ability to perform multiple die bonding with optimized epitaxially grown layer stacks was used to realize high-performance photonic integrated circuits both for communications and sensing. In addition to III-V materials, nonreciprocal materials such as, for example, Ce:YIG can be bonded, providing additional functionality such as on-chip isolators and reconfigurable on-chip circulators. On-chip isolation will become necessary with the increase in complexity of photonic integrated chips as photonic components such as lasers are sensitive to feedback effects.

Publication File
Research Areas
Silicon Photonics