Silicon does not emit light efficiently, therefore the integration of other light-emitting materials is highly demanded for silicon photonic integrated circuits. A number of integration approaches have been extensively explored in the past decade. Here, the most recent progress in this field is reviewed, covering the integration approaches of III-V-to-silicon bonding, transfer printing, epitaxial growth and the use of colloidal quantum dots. The basic approaches to create waveguide-coupled on-chip light sources for different application scenarios are discussed, both for silicon and silicon nitride based waveguides. A selection of recent representative device demonstrations is presented, including high speed DFB lasers, ultra-dense comb lasers, short (850nm) and long (2.3μm) wavelength lasers, wide-band LEDs, monolithic O-band lasers and micro-disk lasers operating in the visible. The challenges and opportunities of these approaches are discussed.

Silicon nitride (SiN) is emerging as a competitive platform for CMOS-compatible integrated photonics. However, active devices such as modulators are scarce and still lack in performance. Ideally, such a modulator should have a high bandwidth, good modulation efficiency, low loss, and cover a wide wavelength range. Here, we demonstrate the first electro-optic modulators based on ferroelectric lead zirconate titanate (PZT) films on SiN, in both the O-band and C-band. Bias-free operation, bandwidths beyond 33 GHz and data rates of 40 Gbps are shown, as well as low propagation losses (α ≈ 1 dB cm−1). A half-wave voltage-length product of 3.2 V cm is measured. Simulations indicate that further improvement is possible. This approach offers a much-anticipated route towards high-performance phase modulators on SiN.

Abstract:In the paper, we review our work on heterogeneous III-V-on-silicon photonic components and circuits for applications in optical communication and sensing. We elaborate on the integration strategy and describe a broad range of devices realized on this platform covering a wavelength range from 850 nm to 3.85 μm.

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Abstract:We demonstrate low-voltage germanium waveguide avalanche photodetectors (APDs) with a gain×bandwidth product above 100GHz. A photonic receiver based on such a Ge APD, including a 0.13µm SiGe BiCMOS low-noise trans-impedance amplifier and a limiting amplifier, is realized. A 5.8dB sensitivity improvement is demonstrated at -5.9V bias at an avalanche gain of 6 through bit error ratio measurements. The absolute sensitivity in avalanche mode is -23.4dBm and -24.4dBm at a bit error ratio of 1×10-12 and 1×10 -9 respectively. ©2014 Optical Society of America

Transceivers based on electro-absorption modulators are considered as a promising candidate for the next generation 400 GbE short-reach optical networks. They are capable of combining high bandwidth and low-power operation with a very compact layout, removing the need for traveling wave electrodes and dedicated 50 Ω termination. In this paper we demonstrate the first silicon-based EAM, in combination with an in-house developed SiGe BiCMOS transceiver chipset, capable of transmitting single-lane 100 Gb/s non-return-to-zero in realtime. Transmission up to 500 m of standard single mode fiber and 2 km of non-zero dispersion shifted fiber is demonstrated, assuming a forward-error coding scheme with a bit-error rate limit of 3.8×10 −3 is used. Due to the high line rate, transmission over longer fiber spans was limited by the chromatic distortion in the fiber. As a possible solution, electrical duobinary modulation is proposed as it is more resilient to this type of fiber distortion by reducing the required optical bandwidth. We show improved performance for longer fiber spans with a 100 Gb/s electrical duobinary link, resulting in real-time sub-FEC operation over more than 2 km of standard single-mode fiber without any digital signal processing. Finally, the possibility of a 100 Gb/s EAM-to-EAM link is investigated.

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Abstract:We demonstrate direct modulation of a heterogeneously integrated C-band DFB laser on SOI at 28 Gb/s with a 2 dB extinction ratio. This is the highest direct modulation bitrate so far reported for a membrane laser coupled to an SOI waveguide. The laser operates single mode with 6 mW output power at 100 mA bias current. The 3 dB modulation bandwidth is 15 GHz. Transmission experiments using a 2 km non zero dispersion shifted single mode fiber were performed at 28 Gb/s bitrate using a 2 7 -1 NRZ-PRBS pattern resulting in a 1 dB power penalty.