Pockels effect in strained silicon photonics (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

Silicon photonics has generated a strong interest in recent years, mainly for optical communications and optical interconnects in CMOS circuits. The main motivations for silicon photonics are the reduction of photonic system costs and the increase of the number of functionalities on the same integrated chip by combining photonics and electronics, along with a strong reduction of power consumption. However, one of the constraints of silicon as an active photonic material is its vanishing second order optical susceptibility, the so called χ(2) , due to the centrosymmety of the silicon crystal. To overcome this limitation, strain has been used as a way to deform the crystal and destroy the centrosymmetry which inhibits χ(2). The paper presents the recent advances in the development of second-order nonlinearities including discussions from fundamental origin of Pockels effect in silicon until its implementation in a real device. Carrier effects induced by an electric field leading to an electro-optics behavior will also be discussed.