Silicon photonic devices and integrated circuits

TLDR

Silicon photonics has rapidly advanced from academic research to commercial products, promising disruptive data‑communication applications and positioning Bell Labs to explore its full potential. This paper reviews recent silicon photonic programs and key achievements. The review covers high‑performance silicon Mach‑Zehnder modulators, hybrid silicon/III‑V lasers, silicon nitride‑assisted polarization rotators, and silicon/silicon‑nitride integration platforms enabling wavelength‑division multiplexing receivers/transmitters and dual‑polarization coherent links. The authors demonstrate novel high‑performance optical devices and multi‑function photonic integrated circuits that support dual‑polarization coherent transmission for advanced modulation formats.

Abstract

Abstract Silicon photonic devices and integrated circuits have undergone rapid and significant progresses during the last decade, transitioning from research topics in universities to product development in corporations. Silicon photonics is anticipated to be a disruptive optical technology for data communications, with applications such as intra-chip interconnects, short-reach communications in datacenters and supercomputers, and long-haul optical transmissions. Bell Labs, as the research organization of Alcatel-Lucent, a network system vendor, has an optimal position to identify the full potential of silicon photonics both in the applications and in its technical merits. Additionally it has demonstrated novel and improved high-performance optical devices, and implemented multi-function photonic integrated circuits to fulfill various communication applications. In this paper, we review our silicon photonic programs and main achievements during recent years. For devices, we review high-performance single-drive push-pull silicon Mach-Zehnder modulators, hybrid silicon/III-V lasers and silicon nitride-assisted polarization rotators. For photonic circuits, we review silicon/silicon nitride integration platforms to implement wavelength-division multiplexing receivers and transmitters. In addition, we show silicon photonic circuits are well suited for dual-polarization optical coherent transmitters and receivers, geared for advanced modulation formats. We also discuss various applications in the field of communication which may benefit from implementation in silicon photonics.