There is a rapidly growing demand to use silicon and silicon nitride (Si 3 N 4 ) integrated photonics for sensing applications, ranging from refractive index to spectroscopic sensing. By making use of advanced CMOS technology, complex miniaturized circuits can be easily realized on a large scale and at a low cost covering visible to mid-IR wavelengths. In this paper we present our recent work on the development of silicon and Si 3 N 4 -based photonic integrated circuits for various spectroscopic sensing applications. We report our findings on waveguide-based absorption, and Raman and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Finally we report on-chip spectrometers and on-chip broadband light sources covering very near-IR to mid-IR wavelengths to realize fully integrated spectroscopic systems on a chip.
We demonstrate a fully integrated extended distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) laser with ∼1 kHz linewidth and over 37 mW output power, as well as a ring-assisted DBR laser with less than 500 Hz linewidth. The extended DBR lasers are fabricated by heterogeneously integrating III-V material on Si as a gain section plus a 15 mm long, low-kappa Bragg grating reflector in an ultralow-loss silicon waveguide. The low waveguide loss (0.16 dB/cm) and long Bragg grating with narrow bandwidth (2.9 GHz) are essential to reducing the laser linewidth while maintaining high output power and single-mode operation. The combination of narrow linewidth and high power enable its use in coherent communications, RF photonics, and optical sensing.
Abstract:The design and characterization of silicon-on-insulator midinfrared spectrometers operating at 3.8μm is reported. The devices are fabricated on 200mm SOI wafers in a CMOS pilot line. Both arrayed waveguide grating structures and planar concave grating structures were designed and tested. Low insertion loss (1.5-2.5dB) and good crosstalk characteristics (15-20dB) are demonstrated, together with waveguide propagation losses in the range of 3 to 6dB/cm.
Abstract-In this letter, we describe the use of a germaniumon-silicon waveguide platform to realize an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) operating in the 5 µm wavelength range, which can be used as a wavelength multiplexer for mid-infrared (midIR) light engines or as the core element of a midIR spectrometer. Ge-on-Si waveguide losses in the range 2.5-3.5 dB/cm for TE polarized light and 3-4 dB/cm for TM polarized light in the 5.15-5.4 µm wavelength range are reported. A 200 GHz channel spacing 5-channel AWG with an insertion loss/crosstalk of 2.5/3.1 dB and 20/16 dB for TE and TM polarization, respectively, is demonstrated.
Abstract-In this paper we discuss silicon-based photonic integrated circuit technology for applications beyond the telecommunication wavelength range. Silicon-on-insulator and germaniumon-silicon passive waveguide circuits are described, as well as the integration of III-V semiconductors, IV-VI colloidal nanoparticles and GeSn alloys on these circuits for increasing the functionality. The strong nonlinearity of silicon combined with the low nonlinear absorption in the mid-infrared is exploited to generate picosecond pulse based supercontinuum sources, optical parametric oscillators and wavelength translators connecting the telecommunication wavelength range and the mid-infrared.
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