PIC: Hybrid Integration of Electro-Optic and Semiconductor Photonic Devices and Circuits with the AIM Photonics Institute

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Considering that today's electronic chips contain tens of billions of devices, and, hence, represent extremely complicated systems, they are rendered economically feasible due to the ever developing and expanding electronics manufacturing infrastructure that provides enormous leverage via economy-of-scale. In comparison, the photonics industry lacks suitable infrastructure to provide the same leverage. As a result, the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics) is a new public-private partnership to address this challenge. While the main focus of AIM Photonics is to leverage the silicon (Si) CMOS manufacturing infrastructure to make photonic devices, other material systems, such as Lithium Niobate (LiNbO3) may be better suited for some applications. Therefore, the focus of this effort is to work closely with the AIM Photonics Institute to develop new heterogeneous manufacturing processes that enable the direct integration of LiNbO3 with Si CMOS for advanced and economically feasible photonic devices and chip-scale systems.Technical:This project will develop a hybrid integration and packaging process for thin-film lithium niobate (LiNbO3) on silicon, to realize high performance RF-photonic devices, e.g., modulators, using low-loss chip-scale routing in silicon nitride (Si3N4) as an initial production level capability. This will be accomplished by leveraging the maturity of established silicon-electronic processing, integration, and packaging technologies and extend them to silicon-based photonic integrated circuits, through the AIM Photonics Institute. The key enabling capability will be to wafer-bond thin-film LiNbO3 directly to foundry scale silicon wafers to realize advanced heterogeneous RF-photonic circuits that are manufacturable within current industrial foundries while maintaining 3 sigma yields. The targeted design goals include: (1) ultra-high frequency modulators ( 100 GHz) for data networks, (2) highly efficient, non-blocking chip-scale routers for high-end data centers, and (3) high-power phased array antenna photonic feed networks compatible with legacy and future generation wireless communications. Thus, upon successful completion of the proposed project, significant contributions will be made to not only develop manufacturable heterogeneous integration processes but also to address pressing applications that span many sectors of the commercial market and touch nearly every aspect of society.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.