Cost-effective Silicon Photonic Optical Engine for Inter-chip Data Connections

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The rapid development of the information technology creates pressing needs on cost-effective, high-density, and high-speed inter-chip data connections for signal processing and computing. Comparing to the conventional electric signal, the optical signal can offer not only a much broader bandwidth and a shorter time delay for inter-chip data transmission, but also more degrees of freedom (e.g., polarization) for complex inter-chip connection topology. Due to the lack of all optical logic and memory units, the signal still needs to be processed in electronic domain. Optical engines are therefore indispensable in bridging the electric signal for processing and the optical signal for transmission. Silicon (Si) photonics has stood out as a promising platform of hosting the aforementioned optical engine comprised of integrated photonic and optoelectronic devices and circuits, due to its cost-effectiveness originated from its matured processing techniques and material abundance, and its compactness and robustness attributed to its viability of supporting high-density integration. The wafer-bonding approach is widely accepted as the most promising technology to obtain high performance Si photonic lasers that serve as the light source to drive the entire Si photonic circuits. However, the low yield and reliability of current evanescent wave coupling technology sets a major hurdle to mass production. Our proposed grating assistant coupling method can avoid these problems. By applying the similar concept to the photo-detector (PD), we can boost the optical gain and reduced the noise simultaneously by exploiting the grating to discriminate the coherent signal and non-coherent noise, thereby to raise the sensitivity of the PD. Consequently, our optical engine technology will be demonstrated by a fully integrated 100Gbps optical transceiver chip prototype. Our proposed research, if successful, will solve the yield and reliability issues in mass production of Si photonic lasers, will greatly raise the performance of Si-Ge PDs, and will consequently establish the optical engine technology for inter-chip data connection. The structure invented, device demonstrated, and knowledge acquired through this research program will not only prompt the next generation optical interconnection technology at the inter-chip level, but will also benefit a number of Canadian companies in relevant areas, since the successful establishment of the mixed monolithic and hybrid integration technology for hetero-structures on multiple material platforms will enable the invention of an entire group of advanced photonic and optoelectronic devices with new or extended complex functions or enhanced performance, it will have significant impact on the development of communication and senor networks. The program will also generate a stream of highly skilled graduate students for Canadian industry.