(Invited) Monolithic Integration of InP Based Structures on Silicon for Optical Interconnects

Activities on the integration of III-V’s on silicon are vibrant among those who strive for real marriage between photonics and electronics¹ and III-V CMOS2. Such integration is a viable approach for silicon photonics, and nanophotonics and nanoelectronics. These technologies are also promising for optical interconnects³ which could replace copper interconnects in integrated circuits⁴. Silicon provides Si/SiO₂-based waveguides that can be fabricated in a CMOS-compatible process⁵. Urino et al. demonstrated for the first time high density optical interconnects integrated with lasers, modulators and photodetectors on single silicon substrate⁶. In their integration scheme, lasers were hybridly bonded on to the SOI platform. There are several bonding and epitaxial approaches that have been reviewed recently in the literature^7-10 In many of the transceiver modules proposed by several companies so far, no satisfactory solution for monolithically integrating laser is available. Active hybrid silicon devices achieved through epitaxial growth of active III–V layers directly on SOI (silicon on insulator) wafers without the use of the intermediate step of growth on InP substrates is an important step to facilitate the integration of high density nano-scale photonic components and to reduce the cost. Here we explore certain feasible methods of integrating III-V devices on silicon for optical interconnects.

By combining epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELOG), we demonstrate direct growth of multi-quantum wells (MQW) emitting at 1.55 µm on InP on Si as a strategy for photonic integration on silicon¹¹. Quantum dot (QD) lasers have several advantages over QW lasers^12-14 and in addition, these can generate single photon sources, entangled photon sources and quantum bits for quantum computation. We demonstrate that templates with InP frusta on silicon for QD growth can be achieved by combining nanoimprinting and epitaxial growth¹⁵. Morphological and optical studies of these templates are indicative of their potential for monolithic integration of QDs on silicon for silicon photonics and nanophotonics. Finally we indicate that ELOG can even be applicable to obtain good InP/Si heterointerface which has a large potential for solar cell applications.

References

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