Wafer-Scale Demonstration of Low-Loss (∼0.43 dB/cm), High-Bandwidth (>38 GHz), Silicon Photonics Platform Operating at the C-Band

Abstract

The key advantage of silicon photonics comes from its potential for large scale integration, in a low-cost and scalable fashion. This has sustained the growth in the area despite disadvantages such as the lack of a monolithic light source, or the absence of a second order non-linear response (χ(2)). Thus far, the work in the field has focused on reporting individual devices from a single die, with excellent performances. Wafer-level results, an area which has not been addressed sufficiently, is a critical aspect of silicon photonics and will provide the community with information regarding scalability and variation, which will be the key differentiating advantage of silicon photonics over other photonic platforms. In this work, we report the development of a low-loss, high-bandwidth C-band silicon photonic platform on a 200 mm CMOS-compatible process line, demonstrating wafer-level performance in the process. Ultra-low waveguide propagation loss with median values as low as 0.43 dB/cm has been achieved. Silicon Mach-Zehnder and microring modulators with median bandwidth of 38.5 and 43 GHz respectively are presented. Finally, germanium waveguide-integrated photodetectors with median bandwidth of 43 GHz are reported. The results reported in this work are comparable to prior demonstrations concerning individual devices. The baseline designs on this platform presented in this work can be accessed commercially from CompoundTek.

Keywords

• Modulator
• photodetector
• photonic integrated circuits
• silicon photonics
• wafer-level platform
• waveguide