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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, into microphotonic components. These operate in the infrared, most commonly at the 1.55 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 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 microchip. Consequently, silicon photonics is being actively researched by many electronics manufacturers including IBM and Intel, as well as by academic research groups, as a means for keeping on track with Moore's Law, by using optical 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 interactions between photons and free charge carriers. The presence of nonlinearity is of 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 unique guiding properties, they can be used for communications, interconnects, biosensors, and they offer the possibility to support exotic nonlinear optical phenomena such as soliton propagation. In a typical optical link, data is first transferred from the electrical to the optical domain using an electro-optic modulator or a directly modulated laser. An electro-optic modulator can vary the intensity and/or the phase of the optical carrier.

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Silicon photonics

Photonic integrated circuit

A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) or integrated optical circuit is a microchip containing two or more photonic components which form a functioning circuit. This technology detects, generates, transports, and processes light. Photonic integrated circuits utilize photons (or particles of light) as opposed to electrons that are utilized by electronic integrated circuits. The major difference between the two is that a photonic integrated circuit provides functions for information signals imposed on optical wavelengths typically in the visible spectrum or near infrared (850–1650 nm).

Optical transistor

An optical transistor, also known as an optical switch or a light valve, is a device that switches or amplifies optical signals. Light occurring on an optical transistor's input changes the intensity of light emitted from the transistor's output while output power is supplied by an additional optical source. Since the input signal intensity may be weaker than that of the source, an optical transistor amplifies the optical signal. The device is the optical analog of the electronic transistor that forms the basis of modern electronic devices.

Linear Electro-optic Effect in Silicon Nitride Waveguides Enabled by Electric-Field Poling

Camille Sophie Brès, Boris Zabelich, Edgars Nitiss, Anton Stroganov

Stoichiometric silicon nitride (Si3N4) is one of the most mature integrated photonic platforms for linear and nonlinear optical applications on-chip. However, because it is a centrosymmetric material,

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2022

Optically reconfigurable quasi-phase-matching in silicon nitride microresonators

Camille Sophie Brès, Jianqi Hu, Edgars Nitiss, Anton Stroganov

Quasi-phase-matching has long been a widely used approach in nonlinear photonics, enabling efficient parametric frequency conversions such as second-harmonic generation. However, in silicon photonics

2022

Integration of MEMS in Silicon Photonics

Alain Yuji Takabayashi

Like integrated electronics, integrated photonics such as Silicon Photonics benefit from increased device-density on a single chip. Silicon is an excellent material for integrated photonics because it

EPFL2021

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