GaN directional couplers for on-chip optical interconnect

Abstract

Here, we propose, fabricate and characterize GaN directional couplers for on-chip optical interconnect on a GaN-on-silicon platform. Suspended InGaN/GaN multiple-quantum-well diodes are adopted for both the transmitter and the receiver, and GaN directional couplers are used to achieve the light coupling between suspended waveguides that are directly connected to the transmitter and the receiver. The proposed on-chip optical interconnects are experimentally demonstrated by light propagation and in-plane data transmission using visible light. The light propagation images directly show that the emitted light can be laterally coupled into the suspended waveguide, and the guided light from the input waveguide then couples to the coupled waveguide due to the overlapped slab. The receiver detects the transmitted light from the coupled waveguide to complete the in-plane visible light communication process, as confirmed by pseudo-random binary sequence data and eye diagrams at the transmission rate of 30 Mbps.