Silicon Photonics and Photonic Integrated Circuits
- [Integrated Photonic Circuits - University of California Santa Barbara]
- Integrated Photonics
Integrated Photonics, the use of light for applications traditionally addressed through electronics, is finding use in a wide range of areas including: telecommunications, laser-based radar, data communications, sensing, and many others. Integrated photonics, specifically silicon photonics, dramatically improves on the performance and reliability of electronic integrated circuits while significantly reducing size, weight, and power consumption.
Developing a widely accepted set of processes and protocols for the design, manufacture, and integration of photonics systems will not only advance this technology in the United States, but also present a tremendous economic opportunity. Integrated photonics will enable the advancement of the aforementioned applications, as well as others, in the 21st century in the same manner that semiconductor microchips fostered the revolution in computing over the past 40 years.
- Graphene-Silicon Photonics
Graphene is an ideal material for optoelectronic applications. Its photonic properties give several advantages and complementarities over Si photonics. For example, graphene enables both electro-absorption and electro-refraction modulation with an electro-optical index change exceeding 10−3. It can be used for optical add–drop multiplexing with voltage control, eliminating the current dissipation used for the thermal detuning of microresonators, and for thermoelectric-based ultrafast optical detectors that generate a voltage without transimpedance amplifiers.
[More to come ...]
