Introduction to the Issue on Silicon Photonics

Abstract

field of silicon photonics, which seeks to develop and integrate photonic components that are compatible with Si integrated circuit technology. Silicon photonics has the potential of leveraging the enormously successful infrastructure developed for the semiconductor industry. Mass production of reliable and inexpensive components and systems that can be readily integrated with silicon microelectronics may become possible, thereby extending the reach of photonics, and revolutionizing the industry by providing a solution to the heat and the data-transfer bottleneck that is threatening the continued advance of Si information technology. Recent developments in the areas of light sources including light-emitting devices and Raman lasers, modulators, switches, photonic crystals, waveguides, photodetectors, and subsystem prototypes demonstrate that silicon photonics is becoming a reality. This issue gathers, for the first time, a large number of papers that have undergone peer review. In all, 14 invited papers and 34 contributed papers, authored by academic, industrial, and governmental scientists and engineers from many countries, cover all the key aspects of silicon photonics. For convenience, the papers have been organized into four groups: 1) passive microphotonic components; 2) active microphotonic components (including modulators, switches, and photodetectors); 3) light emission, LEDs, and lasers (both