High-speed and on-chip graphene blackbody emitters for optical communications by remote heat transfer

Abstract

High-speed light emitters integrated on silicon chips can enable novel architectures for silicon-based optoelectronics, such as on-chip optical interconnects, and silicon photonics. However, conventional light sources based on compound semiconductors face major challenges for their integration with a silicon-based platform because of their difficulty of direct growth on a silicon substrate. Here we report ultra-high-speed (100-ps response time), highly integrated graphene-based on-silicon-chip blackbody emitters in the near-infrared region including telecommunication wavelength. Their emission responses are strongly affected by the graphene contact with the substrate depending on the number of graphene layers. The ultra-high-speed emission can be understood by remote quantum thermal transport via surface polar phonons of the substrates. We demonstrated real-time optical communications, integrated two-dimensional array emitters, capped emitters operable in air, and the direct coupling of optical fibers to the emitters. These emitters can open new routes to on-Si-chip, small footprint, and high-speed emitters for highly integrated optoelectronics and silicon photonics.

A light emitter based on practicable and mass-producible polycrystalline graphene patterned directly on silicon substrates from a solid-state carbon source

“…The broad spectra in the near IR region can be modelized with Planck's law, 46 and the emission from the directly patterned graphene is considered blackbody radiation generated by Joule heating. 7,8,11,14,16,47,48 The graphene temperatures, which are obtained by tting Planck's law are estimated to be 748 K, 819 K and 920 K with V ds ¼ 8 V, 8.5 V and 9 V, respectively. These ndings demonstrate that a light emitting device based on direct patterning graphene operates on a par with light emitting devices based on high crystallinity graphene obtained by mechanical exfoliation method 7,12,16,18 or CVD.…”

Observations of Radiation‐Dominated Rapid Cooling of Structures Based on Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene

“…For example, single‐walled CNTs wrapped in sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and illuminated with subpicosecond laser pulses have been observed to lose the heat to the SDS micelles with a time constant of 45 ps . On‐chip, electrically driven black body emitters have been demonstrated based on graphene, with a response time of 100 ps attributed to thermal transport through the surface polar phonons of the substrate . Electrically driven CNT black body emitters have also been shown, with the fast, 140 ps pulsed operation explained by the small heat capacity of the nanotube film and its high heat dissipation to the substrate .…”

Graphene and its derivatives for Analytical Lab on Chip platforms

“…The industrial chip design flow is based on CMOS technology so a CMOS-compatible graphene based photo detector is highly appreciable and Pospischil et al [81] worked in this direction to make CMOS-compatible graphene based photo detector encompassing all optical communication bands. For optical communications by remote transfer of heat Miyoshi et al [82] fabricated high-speed and on-chip graphene blackbody emitters. For label-free imaging of the electric field dynamics in solutions Horng et al [83] demonstrated a method that employed the exclusive gate-variable optical transitions of graphene with a critically coupled planar waveguide platform.…”