The purpose of this work is to explore an alternative approach for high speed and low power consumption optical modulation based on the use of the Pockels effect in silicon. Unfortunately, silicon is a centro-symmetric crystal leading to a vanishing of the second order nonlinear coefficient, i.e. no Pockels effect. To overcome this limitation, on possibility would be to break the crystal symmetry by straining the silicon lattice with the epitaxial growth of crystalline functional oxides. Indeed, the induced strain due to lattice parameter mismatch and the difference in the thermal expansion coefficients between oxides and silicon are strong and may induce strong strain into silicon. Furthermore, functional oxides can exhibit very interesting multiferroicity and piezoelectricity properties that pave the way to a new route to implement silicon photonic circuits with unprecedented functionalities.

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Guillaume Marcaud, Sylvia Matzen, Carlos Alonso-Ramos, Xavier Le Roux, Mathias Berciano, Pedro Damas, Thomas Maroutian, Guillaume Agnus, Ludovic Largeau, Eric Cassan, Delphine Marris-Morini, Philippe Lecoeur, and Laurent Vivien, "Strain induced by functional oxides for silicon photonics applications," Proc. SPIE 10242, Integrated Optics: Physics and Simulations III, 102420N (Presented at SPIE Optics + Optoelectronics: April 25, 2017; Published: 17 May 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2265996.