New methods and ideas in silicon-compatible photonics

这项发现资助计划是为了研究开发新的硅基和硅兼容光子发射器的计划。它们将成为新一代片上光互连信息处理设备的主力，这些设备将彻底改变广泛的高性能计算应用。所有这些应用都需要开发一种电泵浦的硅基半导体激光器，这种器件从未被制造过，因为普通的晶体硅是一种间接带隙半导体，不能发光。然而，在1990年，人们证明了改性硅可以成为光发射体。目前，世界各地的工业和学术研究团体都在积极追求成为第一个制造出可以与现有硅基计算机芯片集成的电泵浦硅激光器的目标。比赛开始了，我们的目标是成为世界上第一个实现这一壮举的实验室。

This Discovery Grant proposal is for a program of research into the development of new silicon-based and silicon-compatible photonic light emitters. These will serve as the workhorses for a new generation of on-chip optically interconnected information-processing devices which will revolutionize a wide range of high-performance computing applications. All these applications require the development of an electrically pumped silicon-based semiconductor laser, a device which has never been fabricated because ordinary crystalline silicon is an indirect bandgap semiconductor which cannot emit light. However, in 1990 it was demonstrated that modified silicon can be a light emitter. Currently industry and academic research groups all around the world are aggressively pursuing the goal of being the first to fabricate a working electrically-pumped silicon laser device which can be integrated with existing silicon-based computer chips. The race is on, and we aim to be the first laboratory in the world to achieve this feat.