This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 11880, including the Title Page, Copyright information, and Table of Contents.

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are important to reduce the size and increase the capacity of optical systems. Testing of coupling loss, waveguide and bend loss, coupler splitting ratio, and polarization state are all needed for maintaining the quality of foundry-produced PICs. The use of photodetectors, loopbacks and grating couplers accomplishes some of these functions, but at the cost of chip real estate. Image capture from scattered light via a microscope set is possible but the light being emitted is random in nature thus not viable to accurately monitor light within the circuit. To solve this problem, we introduce deterministic, subwavelength scattering elements into the circuits for SWIR camera-based testing of PICs. These elements are designed for negligible footprint, foundry compatibility, and to produce little loss in the circuit while carrying polarization information in the scattered light. Finite-difference time-domain simulations were performed analyzing the use of these scattering element within the system, with subsequent numerical propagation to extend the fields into the microscope observation plane. Using PICs fabricated in the AIM Photonics foundry, we observe light from engineered scatterers that is greater than 20x brighter than the background scatter while also providing polarization sensitivity. Integration of these components with methods for circuit metrology will allow for faster processing of circuit layouts when packaging and distributing PICs.

Programmable photonic circuits, in contrast to classical photonic integrated circuits (PIC), can be configured at run-time to route light along different paths and perform different optical functions. This is accomplished by a mesh of interconnected waveguides that are coupled using electrically actuated tunable couplers and phase shifters. Such a waveguide mesh can redefine the connectivity between functional building blocks, but can also be configured into interferometric and resonant wavelength filters. The generic nature of such programmable PICs will lower the threshold to develop new applications based on photonic chips, in a similar way as programmable electronics.

Silicon photonics can be used to create compact high performance optical inertial sensors by combining photonic integrated circuit structures with micro-electro-mechanical systems engineering. Optically transduced mechanical test-masses benefit from the low noise and long-term stability of stabilised coherent light sources, enabling lower noise floors and improved bias stability compared with capacitive devices. By using optical resonances in the form of whispering gallery modes (WGM) to perform the measurement, we further boost the signal-to-noise ratio of our readout. The dispersive optomechanical coupling between the WGM within a ring resonator and the motion of the test-mass causes a measurable shift to the resonance. We report on progress towards creating an optomechanical accelerometer from silicon-on-insulator wafers, targeting a noise floor of < 1×10^-6 ms^-2/Hz^1/2.

This paper presents a summary review of some of the available foundry services offering Silicon Photonics, comparing the key technologies available to European technology innovators that drive the technology sector. The foundries providing these unique technologies include AMF, CEA Leti, CORNERSTONE, Global Foundries, ihp, imec, and LioniX International. The review will also show examples of Silicon Photonics in emerging application domains from selected foundries.

The interest in developing high-performance optical modulator to meet the growing demands of data processing speed has increased over the last decade. While there have been significant research efforts in developing standalone silicon modulators, works on integrating those with electronics is limited, which is necessary for the practical implementation of short-reach optical interconnects. In contrast to previous work in the field where electronic–photonic integration was mostly limited to the physical coupling approach, we have introduced a new design philosophy, where photonics and electronics must be considered as a single integrated system in order to tackle the demanding technical challenges of this field. In this work, I shall present our recent 100Gb/s silicon photonics transmitter, where photonic and electronic devices are co-designed synergistically in terms of device packaging, power efficiency, operation speed, footprint and modulation format.

We propose a solution to implement a simulation routine suitable for the design of fabrication-tolerant Kerr- comb generators by looking at the waveguides’ geometry affected by the tolerance. The multiparameter-space analysis highlighted that while several waveguide cross-sections are suitable for the comb generation, they don’t all provide the same safety buffer toward the fabrication variability. Thus, some designs are preferred to other suitable ones. This approach paves the way to high yield, scalable and fabrication-tolerant integrated Kerr comb generators (KCGs) manufactured in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) foundries.

Integration of InP laser sources is a key enabling technology for Silicon Photonics and requires customised InP chips that meet the mechanical and optical requirements of a diverse range of Si Photonics architectures. The Sivers Photonics InP100 Platform is a common design and manufacturing framework for InP photonics devices that uses established process modules to produce a broad range of device types on 100mm wafers. This approach reduces cycle times for the development of customised device designs, has proven reliability, and is scalable to high volume manufacturing. The InP100 platform enables integration of customised InP chips with Si Photonics chips (e.g. via flip chip bonding), for applications for applications such as LIDAR, sensing and communications.

Monolithic integration of III–V materials and devices on CMOS compatible on‐axis Si (001) substrates enables a route of low‐cost and high‐density Si‐based photonic integrated circuits. Inversion boundaries (IBs) are defects that arise from the interface between III–V materials and Si, which significantly lowers the quality of III–V materials on Si. Here, a novel technique to achieve IB‐free GaAs monolithically grown on on‐axis Si (001) substrates by realizing the alternating straight and meandering single atomic steps on Si surface has been introduced via all-molecular beam epitaxy approach without the use of double Si atomic steps, which was previously believed to be the key for IB‐free III–V growth on Si. The periodic straight and meandering single atomic steps on Si surface are results of high‐temperature annealing of Si buffer layer. As a demonstration, an electrically pumped InAs quantum‐dot laser has been fabricated based on this IB‐free GaAs/Si platform with a maximum operating temperature of 120 °C. These results can be a major step towards monolithic integration of III–V materials and devices with the mature CMOS technology.

In this work, we present an advanced heterogeneous integration scheme which consists in integrating a thin InP layer by wafer-bonding onto a silicon wafer (InPoSi) on which a regrowth step of III-V materials is implemented. Vertical p-i-n AlGaInAs lasers obtained from a single Selective Area Growth (SAG) step on InPoSi were fabricated. Thanks to SAG, the AlGaInAs-MQW structures successfully cover a PL range of 160 nm in the C+L band. Based on these structures, a 5- channel laser array was fabricated. The latter successfully covers a 155 nm-wide spectral band from 1515 nm to 1670 nm with a maximum output power of 20 mW under continuous-wave regime at 20°C. High thermal stability up to 70°C is demonstrated with a characteristic temperature of 69°C for the lasers emitting from 1515 nm to 1600 nm.

The silicon optical modulator is a key component in a high speed optical data link. To advance the modulator performance beyond the popular carrier depletion based devices, we have produced a capacitive device which is instead based upon the accumulation of free carriers either side of a thin insulating layer positioned in the middle of the waveguide. Such a device has a superior efficiency compared with the carrier depletion approach allowing compactness and improved power consumption whilst retaining high speed operation and CMOS compatibility.

This paper discusses our progress on high-speed optical transmitters for next generation intra-datacenter interconnects. Silicon integrated photonic systems have a key role to play in this evolution by allowing compact, fast, innovative and cost-effective devices to be manufactured in large volumes. Especially silicon Mach-Zehnder modulators are a very attractive candidate: they are easy to manufacture, easy to use and support both intensity as well as coherent modulation. Key to the next-generation optical transmitter is not only the very high datarates, but also the very small form-factor and low power consumption. This requires leveraging electro-optic co-design of driver electronics and optical modulators.

In the frame of the H2020 PICTURE project, we designed and developed densely integrated photonic devices and transceiver (TRx) circuits for high bit-rate telecom and datacom applications. We implemented a process with four different InP-based dies bonded on SOI wafers. With one sole back-end processing run, we achieved the fabrication of multiple components of the complex TRx circuits, and many building block devices, such as III-V/Si SOAs & Fabry-Perot lasers, photodiodes or fast tunable capacitive DFB lasers. First testing of these devices shows promising results. 13dBm-saturation power SOAs and less than 2ns-tuning time capacitive DFB lasers were fabricated and demonstrated.

Integrated photonic is penetrating different segments of the commercial market beyond classical tele/datacom where it provides distinct features such as compactness, low cost, reliability and robustness. In this talk we will focus on these aspects and couple of applications will be introduced. Solid-state lidar has been an exciting research topic for quite a while. And now it’s finding its way into commercial products. Especially automotive applications, such as ADAS technologies, are craving compact, robust and inexpensive systems for 3D mapping.

I review progress in monolithic electronic-photonic platforms, including devices and systems-on-chip (SoCs), for communication applications including in-package I/O, cryogenic data egress and quantum photonic networks. I present developments from Ayar Labs towards Terabit to Petabit scale I/O from a single processor package, including co-packaged photonic I/O chiplets with a commercial FPGA, and 1Tbps from a single chiplet; university research demonstrations of record device performances; a cryogenic photonic data link concept and 4K electronic-photonic transmitter demo that could address the I/O bottleneck of superconducting electronics for future supercomputing platforms; and our efforts on electronic-photonic quantum systems-on-chip (epQSoCs) for photonic quantum networks.

In this work, we discuss the requirements and challenges of designing a photonic computing chip that can be deployed in the latest commercial AI systems. Silicon Photonics have the potential to revolutionize AI computing by delivering unprecedented improvements in the power consumption and computational throughput of AI computations. Still, there are several challenges to be tackled. Among these are the need to design high-density photonic integrated circuits, designing photonic memory systems for data storage, and solving the bottleneck of the electrical-to-optical conversions. Several innovative photonic technologies have been introduced to address these challenges. The progress on implementing these technologies is discussed.

COVID-19 pandemics has evidenced the urgent need of having portable diagnostic tools that enable rapid testing and screening of the population with sensitivity and specificity levels comparable to laboratory techniques. Biosensor technology is one of the best prepared to tackle the challenging goal of offering fast and user-friendly diagnostics tests than can be employed at the point-of-need. We have shown how optical biosensors based on silicon photonics can provide sensitive, reliable and selective analysis, while reducing test and therapeutic turnaround times, decreasing and/or eliminating sample transport, and using low sample volume. And, more importantly, silicon photonics biosensor technology can provide quantification of the viral load, which is of paramount importance in the management of the disease.