Review of silicon photonics: history and recent advances

Silicon photonics has attracted tremendous attention and research effort as a promising technology in optoelectronic integration for computing, communications, sensing, and solar harvesting. Mainly due to the combination of its excellent material properties and the complementary metal-oxide semicond...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of modern optics Vol. 60; no. 16; pp. 1299 - 1320
Main Authors Ye, Winnie N., Xiong, Yule
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Taylor & Francis 20.09.2013
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
active devices
Atoms & subatomic particles
Circuits
CMOS
history
integration
Optics
passive devices
review
Silicon
silicon photonics
Technological change
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Summary:Silicon photonics has attracted tremendous attention and research effort as a promising technology in optoelectronic integration for computing, communications, sensing, and solar harvesting. Mainly due to the combination of its excellent material properties and the complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication processing technology, silicon has becoming the material choice for photonic and optoelectronic circuits with low cost, ultra-compact device footprint, and high-density integration. This review paper provides an overview on silicon photonics, by highlighting the early work from the mid-1980s on the fundamental building blocks such as silicon platforms and waveguides, and the main milestones that have been achieved so far in the field. A summary of reported work on functional elements in both passive and active devices, as well as the applications of the technology in interconnect, sensing, and solar cells, is identified.
ISSN:0950-0340
1362-3044
DOI:10.1080/09500340.2013.839836