STTR Phase I: PIC: Electro-luminescence and doping of black phosphorus for printed lasers on silicon photonic chips

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to demonstrate the viability of a new manufacturing process for on-chip lasers for silicon photonics using printed nanomaterial inks. The difficulty of a scalable method for fabricating on-chip, multi-color lasers is a major challenge for the silicon photonics market. Specifically, today's standard manufacturing of photonic chips does not include on-chip lasers. Without integration of laser engines to drive the circuits, the market potential of light chips is constrained by design and price. The technology developed here can allow foundries to mass produce chips with lasers and open multiple new markets for silicon photonics including wearable photonic sensors, optical data transfer, autonomous vehicle light detection and ranging, quantum information, fiber-optic gyroscopes, and healthcare applications such as immunoassay tests and medical imaging.This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project develops on-chip embedded lasers to enable fully functional silicon photonic chip manufacturing. Currently, the laser solutions being employed in silicon photonics include bonded lasers and heterogeneous integration. The system integrators that assemble silicon photonics modules rely on often cumbersome methods of gluing individual lasers to silicon chips, keeping costs high and throughput well below desired levels. The photonic inks developed here will overcome this challenge by enabling an in-foundry laser solution via wafer-scale additive manufacturing. The photonic ink emits broad-spectrum light covering the visible to the near-infrared range and can be tailored to emit at specific wavelength bands relevant to different markets by altering the number of atomic layers. The goals of this Phase I project are to demonstrate electroluminescence from a p-n junction made from doped, few-layer nanomaterials.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.