Recent advances in silicon-based passive and active optical interconnects

TLDR

Silicon photonics has undergone rapid transformation, with emerging parallel technologies complementing it, and its advances are poised to benefit communication networks, sensing, and nonlinear systems. The paper reviews notable advances in silicon-based passive and active optical interconnect components and highlights key contributions. The authors survey recent developments in silicon-based passive and active optical interconnect components. The increasing use of CMOS foundries for silicon photonics fabrication paves a viable path toward extremely low‑cost integrated optoelectronics.

Abstract

Silicon photonics has experienced phenomenal transformations over the last decade. In this paper, we present some of the notable advances in silicon-based passive and active optical interconnect components, and highlight some of our key contributions. Light is also cast on few other parallel technologies that are working in tandem with silicon-based structures, and providing unique functions not achievable with any single system acting alone. With an increasing utilization of CMOS foundries for silicon photonics fabrication, a viable path for realizing extremely low-cost integrated optoelectronics has been paved. These advances are expected to benefit several application domains in the years to come, including communication networks, sensing, and nonlinear systems.