Investigation of Nanoengineered III-V Buffer Layers for Hetero-integration on Silicon

对于收发模块等应用而言，硅光子学最具技术挑战性和最昂贵的方面之一是激光光源的集成。困难包括从激光芯片到硅光电子芯片的光耦合不良、激光器件的热提取和温度敏感性、用于激光器件的衬底的成本、激光器的反馈灵敏度需要结合笨重的光学隔离器和透镜、以及昂贵的封装和专门的制造步骤。多伦多大学的研究人员在哈里·鲁达教授的领导下，已经开创并开始展示一种技术，通过这种技术，可以在(100)硅衬底上直接生长具有低缺陷密度的单晶InGaAs。在这里，我们建议与华为技术公司合作，开发和优化一种基于纳米模板方法的方法，以提供有源III-V光学器件与硅无源光学以及硅微电子学的集成。该技术的成功开发将有助于(I)实现高性能光电子学应用所需的无缺陷的III-V区(Ii)光学器件所需的硅和III-V层之间的紧密耦合，例如以III-V区作为有源介质耦合到硅中的波导的激光器。此外，这里设想的无位错混合生长使用行业标准的Si(100)，而不是非标准的6度错切的Si衬底，并极大地提高了它们融入现有技术的便利性。

One of the most technically challenging and expensive aspects of silicon photonics for applications such as transceiver modules is the incorporation of a laser source. Difficulties include poor coupling of light from the laser chip to the silicon photonics chip, heat extraction from and temperature sensitivity of the laser device, cost of substrates used for the laser device, feedback sensitivity of the laser requiring incorporation of bulky optical isolators and lenses, and expensive packaging and specialized fabrication steps. All of these issues translate to a decreased yield, increased cost, and longer production time.Researchers at the University of Toronto, led by Prof. Harry Ruda, have pioneered and begun to demonstrate a technique by which single-crystal InGaAs with low defect density can be directly grown on a (100) silicon substrate. Here, in collaboration with Huawei Technologies, we propose to develop and optimize an approach based on leveraging nano-templating method to provide integration of the active III-V optical devices with Si passive optics as well as Si microelectronics. A successful development of the proposed technology will facilitate (i) realization of defect-free III-V regions required for high-performance opto-electronics applications (ii) close coupling between Silicon and III-V layers necessary for optical devices such as lasers with the III-V region as the active medium coupled to waveguides in Silicon. Further, dislocation-free hybrid growth envisaged here uses industry standard Si (100) as opposed to non-standard 6 degree miscut Si substrates, and dramatically enhances the ease of their incorporation into existing technology.