III-V on insulator by tunnel epitaxy for silicon photonics

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As the world becomes increasingly digitalised, global internet traffic has tripled since 2015, and is expected to further double by 2022. The transmission and data capacity of state-of-the-art telecommunications infrastructure must expand rapidly to sustain high levels of performance. At present, silicon photonics is under extensive investigation to resolve the bottleneck in data communications. However, despite the wonderful electronic and waveguide properties, silicon cannot interact with light efficiently. In contrast to group-IV semiconductors, most of III-V compound semiconductors have direct bandgaps with excellent photon absorption and emission efficiency. Growing III-V materials on silicon therefore offers a simple, low-cost and high-throughput path towards all optical components integrated on the same platform. This project attempts to develop a material platform by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) to support the intimate integration of III-V optoelectronic devices with silicon and insulator structures. Advanced geometrically defined techniques such as tunnel epitaxy will be investigated to overcome the materials mismatch without requesting complex buffer designs. Through collaboration with academic and industrial partners (University of Southampton, Rockley Photonics), the student will explore material and device interactive design and optimisation beyond conventional heteroepitaxy era.