Si Photonics

We are just starting work on trying to produce all the optical components required for communication systems monolithically integrated on a single silicon chip. As copper interconnects between microprocessors and memory chips are already reaching the physical bandwidth limits, optical communications links could significantly improve the present bottlenecks but require a silicon technology to be cheap enough for mass market sales. We  along with our collaborators in Cambridge Engineering and Imperial College have a number of ideas for producing efficient and fast modulators along with high efficiency silicon-compatible light emitters / lasers. Already in the literature there are many demonstrators of high quality p-i-n photodetectors, optical couplers, filters and most of the required optical components demonstrated in silicon or SiGe. More will appear once results are achieved.