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进了硅光子学领域，这是一种新兴的低成本、低功耗互连技术，应用范围广泛，从高性能计算的有源电缆到网络中心的100 Gb/s以太网收发器。像任何新技术一样，硅光子学在整合不同功能方面面临着重大挑战。迄今为止，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，一些构建模块，波长多路复用器，最好设计为3-4微米范围内的波导，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，需要单个微米的波导来保持其小尺寸。该项目的目标是解决这一集成挑战，并证明在同一硅片上进行光学元件单片集成的完全可行性，这些光学元件需要在光管理方面有非常不同的几何和尺寸需求。特别是，调制器和多路复用器将集成到同一芯片上。该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力与过去几十年半导体行业的革命相似。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，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。硅光子学通过将光学器件集成到芯片本身，为半导体行业带来了新的创新水平。电气路径存在两个关键问题：它们耗电量大;并且只有一个通道宽。相比之下，光信号可以被分成颜色或波长，每个波长在波导上承载其自己的信号，由许多其他光信号重新使用。复用器（WDM）用于分离和联合收割机波长;调制器用于编码信号。地理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学互连取代电气互连。它将确保美国在这一新的半导体领域的领导地位。

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.