Will silicon be the photonic material of the third millenium? *

TLDR

Silicon microphotonics, merging photonics with silicon microelectronics, is rapidly evolving and enabling diverse applications such as optical transceivers, bus systems for ULSI circuits, SOC I/O stages, and displays. The review aims to motivate silicon microphotonics, survey its state‑of‑the‑art, and outline future directions. It discusses the current state of silicon microphotonics and examines various approaches to realizing the missing silicon laser. The review concludes that silicon will enable full integration of electronic and optical devices.

Abstract

Silicon microphotonics, a technology which merges photonics and silicon microelectronic components, is rapidly evolving. Many different fields of application are emerging: transceiver modules for optical communication systems, optical bus systems for ULSI circuits, I/O stages for SOC, displays, .... In this review I will give a brief motivation for silicon microphotonics and try to give the state-of-the-art of this technology. The ingredient still lacking is the silicon laser: a review of the various approaches will be presented. Finally, I will try to draw some conclusions where silicon is predicted to be the material to achieve a full integration of electronic and optical devices.