Integrated micro- and nanophotonic dynamic devices: a review

Optical links and photonic integrated circuits require integration of photonic and electronic devices at chip, module, or board level. The complexity of such systems is motivating a need for system level CAD tools which can simulate electronic and photonic devices and circuits simultaneously and at multiple levels of abstraction. Furthermore integrating photonic devices into conventional electronic computer and communication systems needs to be justified in terms of cost, performance, and portability of existing computer software and hardware. Thus system level analysis of optoelectronic interconnect system is clearly necessary to ensure that an overall functional and performance requirements are met. The proposed approach for system level modeling is to integrate photonic device simulations into the established electronic design automation environment, particularly VHDL-based one. VHDL description of photonic devices will provide benefits such as portability of individual design, system level performance analysis before building a real system, and synthesis capability for a rapid- prototyping. This paper demonstrates the use of basic VHDL entities of various passive optical waveguide components and a special VHDL package (`Optical_Package') defining physical photonic parameters to verify the feasibility of this approach. It includes modeling and simulation of global signal distribution network on MCMs using optical interconnect and wavelength division (de)multiplexing-based optical link.

There are two main types of optical signals propagating in wired or wireless communication links: time continuously varied or analog, which corresponds to narrowband channels, and time discrete varied or pulse-shaped, which corresponds to wideband channels. Therefore, there are different types of modulation that are usually used for such types of signals. This chapter defines the process of modulation and demodulation. It describes the main principle of both kinds of modulation, analog and digital, and provides some examples of the most useful types of modulation adapted for both kinds of channels, narrowband and wideband. There are three types of modulation, depending on what characteristic is time varied in the modulating signal – amplitude modulation, phase modulation, and frequency modulation. There are three kinds of digital modulation: amplitude shift keying, frequency shift keying, and phase shift keying.

Transient temperature distribution in a multilayer semiconductor device with dynamic thermal load and non-uniform thermal contact resistance between layers

Silicon has been the material of choice of the photonics industry over the last decade due to its easy integration with silicon electronics, high index contrast, small footprint, and low cost, as well as its optical transparency in the near-infrared and parts of mid-infrared (MIR) wavelengths (from 1.1 to 8 μm). While considerations of micro- and nano-fabrication-induced device parameter deviations and a higher-than-desirable propagation loss still serve as a bottleneck in many on-chip data communication applications, applications as sensors do not require similar stringent controls. Photonic devices on chips are increasingly being demonstrated for chemical and biological sensing with performance metrics rivaling benchtop instruments and thus promising the potential of portable, handheld, and wearable monitoring of various chemical and biological analytes. In this paper, we review recent advances in MIR silicon photonics research. We discuss the pros and cons of various platforms, the fabrication procedures for building such platforms, and the benchmarks demonstrated so far, together with their applications. Novel device architectures and improved fabrication techniques have paved a viable way for realizing low-cost, high-density, multi-function integrated devices in the MIR. These advances are expected to benefit several application domains in the years to come, including communication networks, sensing, and nonlinear systems.

Increasing bandwidth demand, mostly driven by the Internet Protocol (IP), has made researchers consider to deploy all-optical devices into packet switched networks. Despite huge bandwidth of the optical communication links (optical fiber) the usable capacity is limited due to bottlenecks (congestions) at the switching nodes. In this paper, a novel all-optical routing architecture is proposed for optical packet switched networks. In the design, practical optical devices (gratings, threshold elements, optical delays, and couplers) have been improved and exploited in order to integrate into an all-optical routing device. The system has been implemented and simulated by using an photonics simulation package (VPI-Virtual Photonics). The packets conveying a three-bit routing information tag at the bit rate of 10 Gbps have been successfully routed between two links. Some of the components are standard tools of the simulation package and some needed to be designed using the transfer function or theory developed in the literature. Noise and losses associated to the nonideal nature of the components are considered in the simulation as well.

Sophisticated electronic devices comprised of sensitive microelectronic components have been installed in the close proximity of the 720 MeV superconducting electron linear accelerator (linac) driving FLASH, the Free Electron Laser in Hamburg, presently in operation at DESY in Hamburg. Microelectronic chips are inherently vulnerable to ionising radiations, usually generated during routine operation of high-energy particle accelerator facilities like FLASH. Hence, in order to assess the radiation effect on microelectronic chips and to develop suitable mitigation strategy, it becomes imperative to characterise the radiation field in the FLASH environment. We have evaluated the neutron and gamma energy (spectra) and dose distributions at critical locations in the FLASH tunnel using superheated emulsion (bubble) detectors, GaAs light emitting diodes (LED), LiF-Thermoluminescence dosimeters (TLD) and radiochromic (Gafchromic EBT) films. This report highlights the application of the passive dosimeters for an accurate analysis of the radiation field in produced by high-energy electron linear accelerators.

High speed optical interconnects provide significant performance improvement and power savings over copper-based solutions in high performance computing and data networking applications. APIC's integrated components using wavelength division multiplexing have been demonstrated for avionics networking. Extension of this technology to the chip scale enables multicore processors to be networked using optical interconnects, extending the performance and power benefits to large scale multicore processors. CMOS fabrication compatibility necessitates that the optical transmitters and receivers and other link components be silicon based, which we implement using epitaxial germanium. APIC has demonstrated both optical transmission and detector technology using germanium in silicon and is working on transitioning the fabrication process to a production foundry. Here we show recent results of germanium optical receivers and, more significantly, demonstration of strained germanium optical sources integrated in a silicon chip. The optical link is suitable for integrated chip-scale fabrication.

Advances in Resist Materials and Processing Technology: Photonic Devices Fabricated by Direct Lithography of Resist/Colloidal Nanocrystals Blend

Development of technology can allow access to new regimes in science and creation of new fields of research. The development of ultra-high finesse mirror technology enabled the development of the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics, and an abundance of wonderful physics experiments soon followed. The sophistication of the field of nano-fabrication and nano-photonics would allow unprecedented capability to mold the shape and flow of light, and provide a novel platform for efficient and hopefully integrable quantum systems. In this project, we hope to interface cold atoms, perhaps the most quintessential of quantum systems, to the engineering power of nano-photonics. We believe this field of study will not only lead to the demonstration of new physics in the quantum regime, but work toward building a network with quantum capabilities mediated by optical channels. In this project, we develop a nano-fabricated platform capable of interfacing nano-photonic devices with cold Cesium atoms in free-space. Nano-photonic waveguide devices are fabricated in a Silicon Nitride device layer on Silicon substrate. The fabrication is compatible with conventional semiconductor fabrication processes, and the chip design has been adapted to allow incorporation with free-space optics to support cold Cesium atom cloud around the waveguides. An ultra-high vacuum system that is compatible to the chip and its supporting structures was constructed to perform experiments. With our system, we were able to fabricate and characterize nano-photonic structures, including 1D photonic crystal waveguides, cavities, and 2D photonic crystal slabs. For the 1D photonic crystal waveguide devices, enhanced atom-light coupling between localized Cesium atoms in the vicinity of the devices, and also atom-atom interaction between Cesium atoms mediated by the guided mode of the photonic crystal waveguide, has been observed. The 2D photonic devices allow us many capabilities beyond that of the 1D waveguide. Demonstration of exotic optical properties including natural decay rate suppression and circular polarization engineering, should be within reach in the near future.

In this paper, we have investigated the performance of an underwater vertical wireless optical communication (UVWOC) link employing multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) operating in conjunction with equal gain combing (EGC) techniques perturbed by weak and strong turbulence in the presence of pointing errors and attenuation losses. Vertical underwater turbulence, which varies from layer to layer due to temperature and salinity variation connected to depth, is modeled using hyperbolic tangent log-normal (HTLN) distribution in the case of weak underwater turbulence and gamma-gamma (GG) distribution in the case of strong underwater turbulence. Novel closed-form expressions quantifying the average bit error rate (BER) have been derived for the UVWOC MIMO EGC system for weak and strong turbulence regimes. The expression for the average BER associated with the UVWOC link for different values of pointing error, differing vertical layer depth, modulation types, and differing numbers of sources and detectors have been determined. In addition, closed-form expressions for the outage probability (OP) and ergodic channel capacity (ECC) have been derived for the UVWOC MIMO EGC system. The accuracy of all closed-form expressions derived in the paper has been verified using Monte Carlo simulations.

All-optical controllable photonic devices have attracted more and more attention for their excellent performances of all-optical controllability, without mechanical structure, high compactness, fast response speed and stable regulation. Here, we will present our recent research achievements in graphene enabled all-optical controllable photonic devices and their applications in filter and sensor.

We demonstrate a flexible face-up 2.5 D packaging technique for a hybrid electro-photonic integration. The process is based on an aerosol-jet technology to print the high-speed electrical interconnects between electronic and photonic chips as a potential alternative for the traditional bonding wires. The technology is realized by creating a transparent mechanical polymer support to bridge the gap between the photonic and electronic chips and subsequently printing the electrical interconnects on top. First, the daisy-chain test chips were used to prove the functionality of the technology by printing the electrical interconnects between the test chips. Then, a standard 85 ° C/85 RH test was performed to investigate the reliability of the printed interconnects and no failure or degradation was observed over 700 h. Afterwards, the technology was successfully applied on functional chips. An optical transmitter based on vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) was demonstrated at 50 Gb/s by printing 200-μm-long high-speed silver interconnects between a 4-channel SiGe BiCMOS driver and four VCSELs. In addition, the technology showed the potential to interconnect silicon photonics chips. An assembly of an electro-absorption modulator (EAM) and a CMOS driver was successfully demonstrated. Clear open eye diagrams were obtained at 40, 50, and 56 Gb/s for the EAM-driver assembly even after 2 km of a standard single-mode fiber.

We present an experimental demonstration of fast all-optical switching on a silicon photonic integrated device by employing a strong light-confinement structure to enhance sensitivity to small changes in the refractive index. By use of a control light pulse with energy as low as 40 pJ, the optical transmission of the structure is modulated by more than 97% with a time response of 450 ps.

The mode-locked laser diode (MLLD) finds a lot of use in applications such as ultra high-speed data processing and sampling, large-capacity optical fiber communications based on optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM) systems. Integrating mode-locked lasers on silicon makes way for highly integrated silicon based photonic communication devices. The mode-locked laser being used in this thesis was built with Hybrid Silicon technology. This technology, developed by UC Santa Barbara in 2006, introduced the idea of wafer bonding a crystalline III- V layer to a Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate, making integrated lasers in silicon chips possible. Furthermore, all mode-locked lasers produce phase noise, which can be a limiting factor in the performance of optical communication systems, specifically at higher bit rates. In this thesis, we design and discuss an impedance matching solution for a hybrid silicon mode-locked laser diode to lower phase noise and reduce the drive power requirements of the device. In order to develop an impedance matching solution, a thorough measurement and analysis of the impedance of the MLLD is necessary and was carried out. Then, a narrowband solution of two 0.1 pF chip capacitors in parallel is considered and examined as an impedance matching network for an operating frequency of 20 GHz. The hybrid silicon laser was packaged together in a module including the impedance- matching circuit for efficient RF injection. In conclusion, a 6 dB reduction of power required to drive the laser diode, as well as approximately a 10 dB phase noise improvement, was measured with the narrow-band solution. Also, looking ahead to possible future work, we discuss a step recovery diode (SRD) driven impulse generator, which wave-shapes the RF drive to achieve efficient injection. This novel technique takes into account the time varying impedance of the absorber as the optical pulse passes through it, to provide optimum pulse shaping.

While silicon has dominated solid-state electronics for more than four decades, a variety of new materials have been introduced into photonics to expand the accessible wavelength range and to improve the performance of photonic devices. For example, gallium-nitride based materials enable the light emission at blue and ultraviolet wavelengths, and high index contrast silicon-on-insulator facilitates the realization of ultra dense and CMOS compatible photonic devices. Here, we report the first deployment of graphene, a two-dimensional carbon material, as the photo-detection element in a 10 Gbits/s optical data link. In this interdigitated metal-graphene-metal photodetector, an asymmetric metallization scheme is adopted to break the mirror symmetry of the built-in electric-field profile in conventional graphene field-effect-transistor channels, allowing for efficient photo-detection within the entire area of light illumination. A maximum external photo-responsivity of 6.1 mA/W is achieved at 1.55 {\mu}m wavelength, a very impressive value given that the material is below one nanometer in thickness. Moreover, owing to the unique band structure and exceptional electronic properties of graphene, high speed photodetectors with an ultra-wide operational wavelength range at least from 300 nm to 6 {\mu}m can be realized using this fascinating material.