An optical interconnection based on silicon pin construction

Abstract

Silicon-based optical interconnection can solve the problem in interconnection of ULSI, can be used in optical communication and can be used in optical calculation in future. A complete Silicon base interconnection optoelectronic system is achieved, which is composed of light emitting diode (LED), driver, detector, and amplifier. Main attention is to prove the feasibility to fulfill optical transmission and detection in using Silicon material, and obtains enhancement of optoelectronic conversion efficiency at the same time. The phenomenon of electro-luminescence of Silicon positive intrinsic negative (pin) structure diode is investigated. The optical spectral response of the system at 700nm indicates that the emitting light source has low optical loss in Silicon. So the LED is suitable for Silicon optoelectronic interconnection system. The detector is constructed with the same pin structure, the responsivity spectrum of the detector has a lot of overlapping area with the spectrum of the LED. So, high transmission efficiency can be achieved in such a system. Moreover, the driver and the amplifier circuit are all realized with Silicon material. The performance of that system was tested in ordinary condition. The EL response time achieves to 100ns and EL quantum efficiency achieves to 0.05%, which is a high level in Silicon optical interconnection. This system is completely compatible with silicon on isolator (SOI) technique and can serve as a foundamental basis of the research in the field of optical connection. Possible improvements for the optical connection system have been discussed.