SBIR Phase I: Geo-photonics - Monolithic Integration in Silicon of Geometrically Diverse Photonic Components for Access, Datacom and Interconnect Applications

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目推动了硅光电子领域的发展，硅光电子作为一种新的、低成本、低功耗的互连技术正在出现，其应用范围从用于高性能计算的有源电缆到用于网络中心的100 Gb/S以太网收发器。与任何新技术一样，硅光子学面临着融合不同功能的重大挑战。到目前为止，光学构建块的性能和尺寸受到晶片选择和制造工艺的影响。例如，一些构建块、波长复用器的最佳设计是使用3-4微米范围的波导，以实现低损耗和易于与外部世界耦合。其他构件，例如调制器，需要单微米的波导来保持其尺寸较小。该项目的目标是解决这一集成挑战，并证明在同一硅片上对光管理要求极不相同的几何和尺寸需求的光学组件的单片集成的完全可行性。特别是，调制器和多路复用器将集成到同一芯片上。这个项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力可以类似于过去几十年半导体行业的革命。在这里，创新使半导体行业的年销售额增长到2500亿美元以上。这推动了高科技、软件、通信、娱乐和健康行业的数十家企业的发展，在美国和世界各地创造了数百万个就业机会和很大一部分财富。通过在芯片上集成光学元件，硅光子学将半导体行业的创新带到了一个新的水平。电动小路有两个关键问题：它们耗电；以及只有一条车道宽。相比之下，光信号可以分成不同的颜色或波长，每个波长在波导上携带自己的信号，供许多其他光信号重复使用。多路复用器(WDM)用于分离和合并波长；调制器用于对信号进行编码。地球光子学将把硅光子学带到一个新的水平。该技术平台将在下一代以太网计算机、网络中心、存储和视频服务器、太比特路由器和超级计算机中用光互连取代电互连。它将确保美国在这一新类别半导体领域的领先地位。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project advances the field of silicon photonics which is emerging as a new, low cost, low power interconnect technology in applications as diverse as Active Cables for High Performance Computing to 100 Gb/s Ethernet transceivers for network centers. Like any new technology, silicon photonics has significant challenges incorporating disparate functions. To date the performance and size of optical building blocks are compromised by the wafer selection and the fabrication process. Some building blocks, wavelength multiplexers, for example, are best designed with waveguides in the 3-4 microns range for low loss and easy coupling to the outside world. Other building blocks, modulators for example, require waveguides of a single micron to keep their size small. The objective of this project is to address this integration challenge and demonstrate full feasibility for monolithic integration of optical components requiring vastly different geometrical and dimensional needs for light management on the same silicon wafer. In particular, modulators and multiplexers will be integrated onto the same chip. The broader impact / commercial potential of this project can be similar to the revolution witnessed in the semiconductor industry in the past few decades. Here innovation has enabled the semiconductor industry to grow to more than $250B in yearly sales. This has fueled dozens more businesses in high technology, software, communications, entertainment and health industries creating millions of jobs and a huge portion of the wealth in the U.S. and around the world. Silicon photonics brings a new level of innovation to semiconductor industry by incorporating optics onto the chip itself. There are two key problems with electrical paths: they are power hungry; and, only one lane wide. By contrast, optical signals can be separated into colors or wavelengths with each wavelength carrying its own signal on a waveguide re-used by many other optical signals. Muliplexers (WDM) are used to separate and combine wavelengths; modulators are used to encode the signals. Geo-photonics will take silicon photonics to a new level. This technology platform will replace electrical interconnect with optical ones in the next generation of Ethernet computers, network centers, storage and video servers, terabit routers, and supercomputers. It will ensure U.S. leadership in this new category of semiconductors.