Advancements in Silicon Photonics - Optical Signal Processing by Silicon Photonics - page 46

resonators [ 42 - 44 ], and detectors [ 45 ]. Silicon photonics also catch the attention
of the interest of industry. Many of companies and industries are eager to perform
research and get real commercial opportunities [ 46 , 47 ]. ST-Microelectronics
described the highly efficient electroluminescence (EL) from an Er-doped
device in year 2002 [ 48 ]. In 2003, the photonic band gap waveguides with very
low losses were presented by IBM [ 49 ]. Low-loss silicon wire waveguides and a
30 GHz SiGe photo detector were established by IBM in 2004 [ 50 ].
In electronic industry a modulator with modulation bandwidth exceeding
1 GHz was fabricated by Intel [ 51 ]. In addition, wavelength conversion and all-
optical switching in silicon were projected [ 52 - 54 ]. By Intel in year 2005, a con-
tinuous wavelength (CW) silicon Raman laser was introduced [ 55 ]. A 10 Gbps
modulator was demonstrated independently both by Intel and Luxtera [ 56 , 57 ]. A
hybrid silicon evanescent laser was invented by the University of California Santa
Barbara and supported by Intel in 2006 [ 58 ]. Also by Cornell a broadband ampli-
fier based on Raman gain was introduced [ 59 ]. Moreover, the electro-optical effect
in strained silicon was demonstrated in 2006 [ 60 ].
In 2007, at Intel the device performance reached up to 40 Gbps for active sili-
con photonic devices. The devices are a mode-locked silicon evanescent laser, and
a fast Ge photo-detector and also modulator [ 61 , 62 ]. Luxtera launched its first
photo receiver that is a four-channel 10 Gbps monolithic optical receiver used in
130 nm CMOS with integrated Ge waveguide photo detector [ 63 ]. The optical
buffering of 10 bits at 20 Gbps in 100 cascaded ring resonators [ 64 ] and recently,
the fast optical switching [ 65 ] demonstrated by IBM team. The recent develop-
ment given an idea about that silicon photonics area is on the mount as it involves
the invention of new structures and application of new materials or of new phe-
nomena in accessible materials.
Silicon nanocrystal (Si-nc, Si-ncs) embedded in a dielectric matrix. In most
cases the silicon oxide is one of the important materials, which has already made
great contributions to the breakthroughs which were pointed out above. It will also
continue to improve the performance of various kinds of these devices (Fig. 4.10 ).

Si

Si

Fig. 4.10 Silicon nano-crystal as an emitter, which emits UV-light after excitation by a laser
( http://ocmp.phys.rug.nl/Research/Nanoscale%20dynamics/index.html )