Innovative photonic devices realization using heterogeneous integration and quantum well dot intermixing

与微电子行业相反，光子行业并不像硅基CMOS那样基于单一核心技术。光子组件的实现需要特定于所涉及的各种材料的多个制造工艺。这种情况的直接后果是缺乏用于生产光子集成电路（PIC）的大规模制造技术。造成这种情况的原因之一是需要既表现出低传播损耗（例如二氧化硅）又表现出高光学增益（例如III-V族半导体）的材料-迄今为止，没有一种单一材料可以有效地提供这两种特性。此外，活性材料的外延生长不允许有效地实现包含多个不同功能的单片结构。因此，目前还没有建立允许在单片组件上大规模集成各种光学功能的制造工艺。因此，复杂的光子电路目前由许多分立元件制造，并且与这种器件相关联的封装成本通常超过分立元件本身的成本。该研究项目旨在进一步开发集成光子器件的两种制造工艺：量子点/阱混合和低损耗二氧化硅波导与III-V材料增益部分的异质集成。这项工作所需的工具，涉及目前用于制造微处理器，存储器和绝缘体上硅（SOI）衬底的标准商业微电子工艺。在这项研究中开发的工艺预计将对增加功能和降低电信和“芯片实验室”类型生物传感器的集成光子组件的制造成本产生重大影响。

Contrary to the microelectronics industry, the photonics industry is not based upon a single core technology as important as CMOS on silicon. The realization of photonic components requires multiple fabrication processes specific to the variety of materials involved. A direct consequence of this situation is the absence of large scale fabrication technology for the production of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs). One of the reasons for this situation is related to the need for materials that exhibit both low propagation losses, like silica for example, as well as high optical gain such as III-V semiconductors - to date, no one single material can provide both properties efficiently. Furthermore, epitaxial growth of active materials does not allow the efficient realization of monolithic structures incorporating multiple distinct functions. As a result, there are currently no established fabrication processes that allow large scale integration of diverse optical functions on monolithic components. Therefore, complex photonic circuits are currently fabricated from numerous discrete components and the packaging costs associated with such devices often exceed that of the discrete components themselves. This research project aims to further develop two fabrication processes for integrated photonic components: quantum dot/well intermixing and heterogeneous integration of low loss silica waveguides with III-V materials gain sections. The tools required for this work, are involved in standard commercial microelectronic processes currently used for the fabrication of microprocessors, memories, and silicon on insulator (SOI) substrates. The processes developed within this research are expected to have a significant impact on increasing the functionality and reducing the fabrication cost of integrated photonic components for both the telecommunications and "lab on a chip" type bio-sensors.