Sebastian Romero-García

Silicon nitride CMOS-compatible platform for integrated photonics applications at visible wavelengths

Silicon nitride is demonstrated as a high performance and cost-effective solution for dense integrated photonic circuits in the visible spectrum. Experimental results for nanophotonic waveguides fabricated in a standard CMOS pilot line with losses below 0.71dB/cm in an aqueous environment and 0.51dB/cm with silicon dioxide cladding are reported. Design and characterization of waveguide bends, grating couplers and multimode interference couplers (MMI) at a wavelength of 660 nm are presented. The index contrast of this technology enables high integration densities with insertion losses below 0.05 dB per 90° bend for radii as small as 35 µm. By a proper design of the buried oxide layer thickness, grating couplers with efficiencies above 38% for the TE polarization have been obtained.

Edge Couplers With Relaxed Alignment Tolerance for Pick-and-Place Hybrid Integration of III–V Lasers With SOI Waveguides

We report on two edge-coupling and power splitting devices for hybrid integration of III-V lasers with sub-micrometric silicon-on-insulator waveguides. The proposed devices relax the horizontal alignment tolerances required to achieve high coupling efficiencies and are suitable for passively aligned assembly with pick-and-place tools. Light is coupled to two on-chip single mode SOI waveguides with almost identical power coupling efficiency, but with a varying relative phase accommodating the lateral misalignment between the laser diode and the coupling devices, and is suitable for the implementation of parallel optics transmitters. Experimental characterization with both a lensed fiber and a Fabry-Pérot semiconductor laser diode has been performed. Excess insertion losses (in addition to the 3 dB splitting) taken as the worst case over both waveguides of respectively 2 ± 0.3 dB and 3.1 ± 0.3 dB, as well as excellent 1 dB loss placement tolerance range of respectively 2.8 μm and 3.8 μm (worst case over both in-plane axes) have been measured for the two devices. Back-reflections to the laser are below -20 dB for both devices within the 1 dB misalignment range. Devices were fabricated with 193 nm DUV optical lithography and are compatible with mass-manufacturing with mainstream CMOS technology.

Low V π Silicon photonics modulators with highly linear epitaxially grown phase shifters

We report on the design of Silicon Mach-Zehnder carrier depletion modulators relying on epitaxially grown vertical junction diodes. Unprecedented spatial control over doping profiles resulting from combining local ion implantation with epitaxial overgrowth enables highly linear phase shifters with high modulation efficiency and comparatively low insertion losses. A high average phase shifter efficiency of VπL = 0.74 V⋅cm is reached between 0 V and 2 V reverse bias, while maintaining optical losses at 4.2 dB/mm and the intrinsic RC cutoff frequency at 48 GHz (both at 1 V reverse bias). The fabrication process, the sensitivity to fabrication tolerances, the phase shifter performance and examples of lumped element and travelling wave modulators are modeled in detail. Device linearity is shown to be sufficient to support complex modulation formats such as 16-QAM.

Visible wavelength silicon nitride focusing grating coupler with AlCu/TiN reflector

High-performance silicon nitride focusing grating couplers with AlCu/TiN reflectors for a visible wavelength (660 nm) have been designed and fabricated in a standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor pilot line. The influence of the bottom oxide cladding thickness on the grating decay length and efficiency is theoretically and experimentally investigated. It is shown how the metal reflector not only increases the efficiency but also allows reduction of the radiated beam size. Coupling efficiencies above 59% have been measured for compact focusing gratings.

Alignment Tolerant Couplers for Silicon Photonics

Laser integration, optical coupling, and assembly are challenging problems that need to be further addressed to reduce the manufacturing costs of silicon photonic-based products. In this paper, we propose novel coupling devices that facilitate the passive assembly of silicon photonics chips with laser diodes and optical fibers by means of pick-and-place tools by relaxing the stringent alignment tolerances required for maintaining a high coupling efficiency. In these devices, a lateral misalignment of the laser or fiber relative to the chip is accommodated by a varying phase difference between two on-chip single-mode SOI waveguides to which the light is coupled with minimal insertion loss penalty and a balanced power splitting. This device concept is successfully applied to the fabrication of in-plane laser couplers based on inverse taper arrays and out-of-plane fiber couplers with diffraction gratings. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate the suitability of the proposed devices for fiber array assembly in Mach-Zehnder interferometer configuration. The best devices exhibit a three-fold improvement relative to the lateral alignment tolerances of conventional couplers.

Advances in silicon photonics segmented electrode Mach-Zehnder modulators and peaking enhanced resonant devices

We report recent progress made in our laboratory on travelling wave Mach-Zehnder Interferometer based Silicon Photonics modulators with segmented transmission lines, as well as on resonant ring modulators and add-drop multiplexers with peaking enhanced bandwidth extended beyond the photon lifetime limit. In our segmented transmission lines, microstructuring of the electrodes results in radio-frequency modes significantly deviating from the transverse electromagnetic (TEM) condition and allows for additional design freedom to jointly achieve phase matching, impedance matching and minimizing resistive losses. This technique was found to be particularly useful to achieve the aforementioned objectives in simple back-end processes with one or two metallization layers. Peaking results from intrinsic time dynamics in ring resonator based modulators and add-drop multiplexers and allows extending the bandwidth of the devices beyond the limit predicted from the photon lifetime. Simple closed form expressions allow incorporating peaking into system level modeling.

Silicon photonics WDM transmitter with single section semiconductor mode-locked laser

Abstract We demonstrate a wavelength domain-multiplexed (WDM) optical link relying on a single section semiconductor mode-locked laser (SS-MLL) with quantum dash (Q-Dash) gain material to generate 25 optical carriers spaced by 60.8 GHz, as well as silicon photonics (SiP) resonant ring modulators (RRMs) to modulate individual optical channels. The link requires optical reamplification provided by an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) in the system experiments reported here. Open eye diagrams with signal quality factors (Q-factors) above 7 are measured with a commercial receiver (Rx). For higher compactness and cost effectiveness, reamplification of the modulated channels with a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) operated in the linear regime is highly desirable. System and device characterization indicate compatibility with the latter. While we expect channel counts to be primarily limited by the saturation output power level of the SOA, we estimate a single SOA to support more than eight channels. Prior to describing the system experiments, component design and detailed characterization results are reported including design and characterization of RRMs, ring-based resonant optical add-drop multiplexers (RR-OADMs) and thermal tuners, S-parameters resulting from the interoperation of RRMs and RR-OADMs, and characterization of Q-Dash SS-MLLs reamplified with a commercial SOA. Particular emphasis is placed on peaking effects in the transfer functions of RRMs and RR-OADMs resulting from transient effects in the optical domain, as well as on the characterization of SS-MLLs in regard to relative intensity noise (RIN), stability of the modes of operation, and excess noise after reamplification.

Silicon nitride back-end optics for biosensor applications

Silicon nitride (SiN) is a promising candidate material for becoming a standard high-performance solution for integrated biophotonics applications in the visible spectrum. As a key feature, its compatibility with the complementary-oxidemetal- semiconductor (CMOS) technology permits cost reduction at large manufacturing volumes that is particularly advantageous for manufacturing consumables. In this work, we show that the back-end deposition of a thin SiN film enables the large light-cladding interaction desirable for biosensing applications while the refractive index contrast of the technology (Δn ≈ 0.5) also enables a considerable level of integration with reduced waveguide bend radii. Design and experimental validation also show that several advantages are derived from the moderate SiN/SiO2 refractive index contrast, such as lower scattering losses in interconnection waveguides and relaxed tolerances to fabrication imperfections as compared to higher refractive index contrast material systems. As a drawback, a moderate refractive index contrast also makes the implementation of compact grating couplers more challenging, due to the fact that only a relatively weak scattering strength can be achieved. Thereby, the beam diffracted by the grating tends to be rather large and consequently exhibit stringent angular alignment tolerances. Here, we experimentally demonstrate how a proper design of the bottom and top cladding oxide thicknesses allows reduction of the full-width at half maximum (FWHM) and alleviates this problem. Additionally, the inclusion of a CMOS-compatible AlCu/TiN bottom reflector further decreases the FWHM and increases the coupling efficiency. Finally, we show that focusing grating designs greatly reduce the device footprint without penalizing the device metrics.

Hybrid silicon photonics flip-chip laser integration with vertical self-alignment

We present a flip-chip integration process in which the vertical alignment is guaranteed by a mechanical contact between pedestals defined in a recess etched into a silicon photonics chip and a laser or semiconductor optical amplifier. By selectively etching up to the active region of the III-V materials, we can make the accuracy of vertical alignment independent on the process control applied to layer thicknesses during silicon photonics or III-V chip fabrication, enabling alignment tolerances below ±10 nm in the vertical (Z-)direction.

High-speed resonantly enhanced silicon photonics modulator with a large operating temperature range

We present a novel resonant Mach-Zehnder modulator whose arms are each loaded with five identical resonators. Size and power consumption are aggressively reduced compared to conventional modulators based on linear phase shifters. At the same time, a large optical bandwidth of 3.8 nm is maintained. We experimentally demonstrate open eye diagrams at 30 Gbps with a signal Q-factor remaining within a factor of 2 of its peak value in an operational temperature range spanning 55°C.