Monolithic Platform Research Articles

Towards Building Monolithic Computational Platform for SECI Model

SECI Model has been predominantly used by researchers as a framework for analyzing knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. It generalizes the application of the framework such that it is useable for various industries and disciplines such as in education, manufacturing, software development, finance, business and others. Its popularity has gained interest among re-searchers who explored the possibility to implement SECI model in computational environment. This paper presents the monolithic system that was designed and built to allow the SECI model activities to be performed in a full manner in a single platform. SECI model activities are studied and summarized to grasp the perceptions of the researchers of what are the activities that are classified under each SECI model phases. Based on these activities, we identified some selected activities to demonstrate the possibility of implementing the SECI Model in our KFTGA system. KFTGA (Knowledge Flow Tracer and Growth Analyzer) is a knowledge sharing platform that was built to support SECI Model activities.

Low kappa, narrow bandwidth Si(3)N(4) Bragg gratings.

We investigate three approaches to low perturbation gratings to achieve lower linewidths in filters and semiconductor lasers. The three designs, which are labeled post, sampled, and high order, are DUV lithography compatible and were fabricated on 90 nm thick Si(3)N(4) strip waveguides. Reflection and transmission spectra measurements show coupling constant, kappa, values ranging from 0.23 cm(‑1) to 1.2 cm(‑1) with FWHM values of 74 pm to 116 pm. We discuss the tradeoffs between these geometries in terms of lowest linewidth, apodization, and curved waveguide layout. These results enable long cavity single mode lasers with kHz level linewidths on a monolithic platform.

Detection of human genome mutations associated with pregnancy complications using 3-D microarray based on macroporous polymer monoliths

Analysis of variations in DNA structure using a low-density microarray technology for routine diagnostic in evidence-based medicine is still relevant. In this work the applicability of 3-D macroporous monolithic methacrylate-based platforms for detection of different pathogenic genomic substitutions was studied. The detection of nucleotide replacements in F5 (Leiden G/A, rs6025), MTHFR (C/T, rs1801133) and ITGB3 (T/C, rs5918), involved in coagulation, and COMT (C/G, rs4818), TPH2 (T/A, rs11178997), PON1 (T/A rs854560), AGTR2 (C/A, rs11091046) and SERPINE1 (5G/4G, rs1799889), associated with pregnancy complications, was performed. The effect of such parameters as amount and type of oligonucleotide probe, amount of PCR product on signal-to-noise ratio, as well as mismatch discrimination was analyzed. Sensitivity and specificity of mutation detections were coincided and equal to 98.6%. The analysis of SERPINE1 and MTHFR genotypes by both NGS and developed microarray was performed and compared.

Efficient preliminary floating offshore wind turbine design and testing methodologies and application to a concrete spar design.

The current key challenge in the floating offshore wind turbine industry and research is on designing economic floating systems that can compete with fixed-bottom offshore turbines in terms of levelized cost of energy. The preliminary platform design, as well as early experimental design assessments, are critical elements in the overall design process. In this contribution, a brief review of current floating offshore wind turbine platform pre-design and scaled testing methodologies is provided, with a focus on their ability to accommodate the coupled dynamic behaviour of floating offshore wind systems. The exemplary design and testing methodology for a monolithic concrete spar platform as performed within the European KIC AFOSP project is presented. Results from the experimental tests compared to numerical simulations are presented and analysed and show very good agreement for relevant basic dynamic platform properties. Extreme and fatigue loads and cost analysis of the AFOSP system confirm the viability of the presented design process. In summary, the exemplary application of the reduced design and testing methodology for AFOSP confirms that it represents a viable procedure during pre-design of floating offshore wind turbine platforms.

Extreme electronic bandgap modification in laser-crystallized silicon optical fibres.

For decades now, silicon has been the workhorse of the microelectronics revolution and a key enabler of the information age. Owing to its excellent optical properties in the near- and mid-infrared, silicon is now promising to have a similar impact on photonics. The ability to incorporate both optical and electronic functionality in a single material offers the tantalizing prospect of amplifying, modulating and detecting light within a monolithic platform. However, a direct consequence of silicon's transparency is that it cannot be used to detect light at telecommunications wavelengths. Here, we report on a laser processing technique developed for our silicon fibre technology through which we can modify the electronic band structure of the semiconductor material as it is crystallized. The unique fibre geometry in which the silicon core is confined within a silica cladding allows large anisotropic stresses to be set into the crystalline material so that the size of the bandgap can be engineered. We demonstrate extreme bandgap reductions from 1.11 eV down to 0.59 eV, enabling optical detection out to 2,100 nm.

On-chip generation and demultiplexing of quantum correlated photons using a silicon-silica monolithic photonic integration platform.

We demonstrate the generation and demultiplexing of quantum correlated photons on a monolithic photonic chip composed of silicon and silica-based waveguides. Photon pairs generated in a nonlinear silicon waveguide are successfully separated into two optical channels of an arrayed-waveguide grating fabricated on a silica-based waveguide platform.

All-ceramic analytical microsystems with monolithically integrated optical detection microflow cells

All-ceramic microfluidic platforms with integrated optical microflow cells, fabricated using the low-temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) technology, are presented. The fabrication procedure described allows the construction of hermetically sealed monolithic microfluidic platforms, with homogeneous surface chemistry and physical properties. Therefore, the presented procedure eliminates the problems related to properties mismatch of the different construction materials used up to now to integrate transparent windows in the ceramic platforms. LTCC sheets, used as optical windows, were optically characterized in terms of transmittance according to their thickness in the UV–Vis–NIR regions. The influence of optical microflow cells parameters, such as optical path length, diameter, and window thickness, on sensitivity and detection limit, were investigated using the colorimetric complex [Fe(phen)3]2+ formed between Fe(II) and 1,10-phenanthroline. Detection limit as low as 8 ppb of Fe(II) was obtained. The results open the possibility of using optical detection within the traditional application fields of LTCC technology, such as high-temperature or organic solvents applications, while using a simple fabrication procedure suitable for low-cost mass production.

Silicon-Germanium-Silica Monolithic Photonic Integration Platform for High-Performance Optical Data Communication Systems

For practical data communications applications highly-integrated silicon-based photonic devices, we have developed a silicon-germanium-silica monolithic photonic integration platform, on which high-performance silica-based passive devices and compact, high-speed silicon-based dynamic/active devices can be monolithically integrated. In the Si-Ge-silica monolithic integration, it is important to deposit index-controllable silica at a low temperature, so as not to damage the Si- and Ge-based active/dynamic devices. Using this platform, various kind of photonic devices have been integrated on a small silicon ship. On this photonic platform, moreover, high-speed electronic circuits can also be integrated.

Silicon-Germanium-Silica Monolithic Photonic Integration Platform for High-Performance Optical Data Communication Systems

Recently, data communication systems are now facing an explosive traffic increase. In order to cope with such an explosive traffic increase, densely-integrated photonic circuits, which would provide compact, high-functionality, energy-efficient and cost-effective network modules, are required. The silicon (Si) photonic platform, which enables monolithic integration of compact photonic devices made of Si and germanium (Ge) on Si wafer, is one of the breakthrough technologies that satisfy these requirements. Waveguide cores on a scale of 100 nm and micrometer-order bending of silicon wire waveguides provide us ultra-compact integrated photonic devices with fast operation speed.However, the hurdles to practical applications of the Si photonic platform are still very high. In middle and long distance applications, for example, photonic devices with a large dynamic range, low optical losses, and low polarization dependence are required. The present Si photonic platform, however, can not provide such high-performance photonic devices. This is because the device performances are extremely sensitive to geometric errors. For example, the geometric tolerance required for passive photonic devices, such as wavelength filters for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems, is far below that of the errors in the present fabrication technology.To overcome these obstacles, we have developed a photonic platform on which Si-, Ge- and silica-based photonic devices are monolithically integrated[1]. Figure 1 shows the conceptual structure of the Si-Ge-silica monolithic photonic platform. On this platform, Si wire waveguides and a Ge layer grown on them are mainly used for dynamic and active devices, which require compactness and high operation speed, while silica waveguides are used for high-performance passive devices. Thanks to the large fabrication tolerance of silica-based waveguide devices, we can build passive decvices with low loss, low crosstalk and low polarization dependece. The silica waveguide can also serve as an interface to external optical fiber. In the Si-Ge-silica monolithic integration, it is important to deposit index-controllable silica at a low temperature so as not to damage active/dynamic devices based on Si and Ge.On this platform, we have developed various photonic devices, such as silica-based arrayed-waveguide-grating wavelength filters (AWG), Si-based electrically-driven modulation devices, and Ge-based photodetectors. The silica-based AWG exhibits high performance in optical loss, crosstalk and polarization dependence. Moreover, the performance of active/dynamic devices has also been improved in order to meet practical applications. For example, the responsivity, frequency bandwidth and polarization-dependent loss of fabricated Ge photodetectors (PDs) are almost comparable to those of indium-phosphide-based high-performance devices. These photonic devices can be monolithically integrated on a Si chip. As an example, Fig. 2 shows an integrated AWG-PD for a 16-channel WDM receiver with a 1.6-nm channel spacing. Inter-channel crosstalk of the device is -22 dB, which is significantly lower than those based on silicon wire waveguides. Each channel works at a data rate of 25 Gbps, and total receiver capacity reaches 400 Gbps.Features of the photonic circuits based on the Si-Ge-silica photonic integration platform are compactness, CMOS compatible fabrication and robustness. The size of the integrated device is typically less than 1-cm square, which can be installed in a small package. The CMOS compatible fabrication process simplifies the assembly processes and reduces fabrication cost. The platform is also endurable against the flip-chip bonding of electronic circuits. For example, we have already mounted 4-channel high-speed electronic amplifiers for PDs on a photonic chip consisting of 4-channel wavelength filters and PDs.Thus, using the Si-Ge-silica monolithic photonic platform, we can construct compact, highly-functional high-density photonic-electronic integration devices for sustainable growth of data communications industries.[1] T. Hiraki et al., IEEE Photonics Journal, vol. 5, 4500407 (2013).

Three-dimensional (3D) monolithically integrated photodetector and WDM receiver based on bulk silicon wafer.

We propose a novel three-dimensional (3D) monolithic optoelectronic integration platform. Such platform integrates both electrical and photonic devices in a bulk silicon wafer, which eliminates the high-cost silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer and is more suitable for process requirements of electronic and photonic integrated circuits (ICs). For proof-of-concept, we demonstrate a three-dimensional photodetector and WDM receiver system. The Ge is grown on a 8-inch bulk silicon wafer while the optical waveguide is defined in a SiN layer which is deposited on top of it, with ~4 µm oxide sandwiched in between. The light is directed to the Ge photodetector from the SiN waveguide vertically by using grating coupler with a Aluminum mirror on top of it. The measured photodetector responsivity is ~0.2 A/W and the 3-dB bandwidth is ~2 GHz. Using such vertical-coupled photodetector, we demonstrated an 8-channel receiver by integrating a 1 × 8 arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). High-quality optical signal detection with up to 10 Gbit/s data rate is demonstrated, suggesting a 80 Gbit/s throughput. Such receiver can be applied to on-chip optical interconnect, DRAM interface, and telecommunication systems.

Silicon-germanium-silica Monolithic Photonic Integration Platform for Telecommunications Device Applications

Silicon-germanium-silica Monolithic Photonic Integration Platform for Telecommunications Device Applications

Model separability indices for efficient dynamic simulation

This paper proposes a means to quantify the aptitude of a dynamic model to be partitioned into weakly coupled submodels. The proposal applies to both linear and nonlinear systems, is largely independent of their scale, and requires information that is easy to provide on the part of the analyst. The presented indices can be exploited in different manners, from easing numerical integration on monolithic solution platforms to tailoring distributed or co-simulation ones based on the particular characteristics of the model at hand. Examples are reported to show the usefulness and the practical viability of the proposal.

Simple Epitaxial Lateral Overgrowth Process as a Strategy for Photonic Integration on Silicon

In this paper we propose a strategy to achieve monolithic integration of III-Vs on Si for photonic integration through a simple process. By mimicking the SiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> /Si/SiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> waveguide necessary to couple light from the gain medium on its top, we adopt a ~2 μm thick silicon dioxide mask for epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELOG) of InP on Si. The ELOG InP layer as wells as the subsequently grown quantum wells (~1. 55 μm) have been analyzed by photoluminescence and transmission electron microscopy and found to have high optical quality and very good interface. The studies are strategically important for a monolithic platform that holds great potential in addressing the future need to have an integrated platform consisting of both III-Vs and Si on same chip.

The Design and Analysis of Monolithic Integration of CMOS-Compatible Plasmonic Waveguides for On-Chip Electronic–Photonic Integrated Circuits

Plasmonic waveguides based on surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are highly complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible that they have been considered as a prospective basic element to implement future on-chip subwavelength electronic-photonic integrated circuits (EPICs). We propose the monolithic integration of CMOS-compatible plasmonic waveguides within CMOS architecture for the development of CMOS EPICs. Based on a preformed CMOS optoelectronic platform, several different types of plasmonic EPIC schematics are proposed. The vertical directional coupling characteristics of the proposed plasmonic EPICs are thoroughly investigated in detail at a telecom wavelength of 1.55 μm. By changing the geometrical parameters of the plasmonic waveguides, we identified the coupler configuration that provides optimal optical performance. We discussed the design and fabrication issues for further development of the proposed plasmonic CMOS EPICs and related microsystems. We concluded that the proposed monolithic integration platform would make first step forward to exploiting for plasmonic-based 3-D on-chip EPICs.

Si-Ge-Silica Monolithic Integration Platform and Its Application to a 22-Gb/s &lt;formula formulatype="inline"&gt;&lt;tex Notation="TeX"&gt;$\times$&lt;/tex&gt;&lt;/formula&gt; 16-ch WDM Receiver

We describe a Si-Ge-silica monolithic integration platform for telecommunications applications. The monolithic integration process features low-temperature silica film deposition by electron-cyclotron-resonance chemical vapor deposition to prevent thermal damage to Si/Ge active devices. The monolithically integrated Si and SiOx waveguides show propagation losses of 2.8 and 0.9 dB/cm, and the inverse-tapered spot-size converters show a coupling loss of 0.35 dB. We applied the platform to a 22-Gb/s × 16-ch wavelength-division multiplexing receiver, in which a 16-ch SiOx arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) with 1.6-nm channel separation and Ge photodiodes (PDs) are monolithically integrated. The AWG-PD device exhibits fiber-to-PD responsivity of 0.29 A/W and interchannel crosstalk of less than -22 dB and successfully receives 22-Gb/s signal for all 16 channels. In addition, we demonstrate 40-km transmission of 12.5-Gb/s signal and obtain sensitivity of -6.8 dBm at a bit error rate of 10-9 without transimpedance amplifiers.

Functional monolithic platforms: Chromatographic tools for antibody purification

Polymer monoliths are an efficient platform for antibody purification. The use of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and engineered antibody structures as therapeutics has increased exponentially over the past few decades. Several approaches use polymer monoliths to purify large quantities of antibody with defined clinical and performance requirements. Functional monolithic supports have attracted a great deal of attention as they offer practical advantages for antibody purification, such as more rapid analysis, smaller sample volume requirements and the opportunity for a greater target molecule enrichment. This review focuses on the development of synthetic and natural polymer-based monoliths for antibody purification. The materials and methods employed in monolith production are discussed, highlighting the properties of each system. We also review the structural characterization techniques available using monolithic systems and their performance under different chromatographic approaches to antibody capture and release. Finally, a summary of monolithic platforms developed for antibody separation is presented, as well as expected trends in research to solve current and future challenges in this field. This review comprises a comprehensive analysis of proposed solutions highlighting the remarkable potential of monolithic platforms.

Compact, cost-effective monolithic photonic platform for telecom applications

Compact, cost-effective monolithic photonic platform for telecom applications

40-Gb/s Colorless Reflective Amplified Modulator

In this letter, we demonstrate a colorless reflective amplified modulator operating within the C- and L-band spectral ranges with the modulation data rate up to 40 Gb/s. We obtain a stable, open eye performance of the device at the temperature until 85°C. The presented device is fabricated using an indium phosphide (InP) monolithic integration platform, which relies on an AlGaInAs quantum well active material, gap engineering by selective area growth, and low-parasitic RC semi-insulating buried heterostructures.

Macroporous methacrylate-based monoliths as platforms for DNA microarrays

Macroporous monoliths with different surface functionalization (reactive groups) were utilized as platforms for DNA analysis in microarray format. The slides based on a copolymer glycidyl methacrylate-co-ethylene dimethacrylate (GMA-EDMA) have been chosen as well known and thoroughly studied standard. In particular, this material has been used at optimization of DNA microanalytical procedure. The concentration and pH of spotting solution, immobilization temperature and time, blocking agent and coupling reaction duration were selected as varied parameters. The efficiency of analysis performed on 3-D monolithic platforms was compared to that established for commercially available glass slides. As a practical example, a diagnostic test for detection of CFTR gene mutation was carried out. Additionally, the part of presented work was devoted to preparation of aptamer-based test-system that allowed successful and highly sensitive detection both of DNA and protein.

Monolithic Encapsulation of Implantable Neuroprosthetic Devices Using Liquid Crystal Polymers

Flexible polymers have gained much attention in the development of low cost, magnetic resonance compatible, and nonfragile implantable medical devices. However, efficacy of the conventional polymer encapsulations containing hybrid interfaces is limited due to their relatively high moisture absorption and unstable interfacial adhesion in aqueous environments. As an alternative, we report on a monolithic encapsulation platform for neuroprosthetic devices using liquid crystal polymers (LCPs), which have a very low degree of moisture absorption (<;0.04%) and a fusion bondable interface. This platform offers monolithic encapsulation by fusion bonding of the hemispherical LCP package lids and LCP-based microelectrode arrays. The package lids were fabricated by thermoforming of the LCP films to provide the desired shape and size for encasing the electronic components and wireless telemetry coils. Fusion-bonded LCP encapsulations were evaluated using electrical leakage current measurements during in vitro soak tests. The measurements were done in both 37°C and 75°C phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) solution and showed that LCP encapsulation was superior and more reliable in PBS than polyimide and parylene-C encapsulations. In addition, LCP-based monolithic encapsulation provided reliable electrical insulation for more than 300 days in both 37°C and 75°C PBS solution.