Optoelectronic Integrated Circuits Research Articles

Design and Simulation of a Compact Subwavelength Graphene-Based Switch for Surface Plasmon Polariton Transmission in Integrated Optoelectronic Circuits

Design and Simulation of a Compact Subwavelength Graphene-Based Switch for Surface Plasmon Polariton Transmission in Integrated Optoelectronic Circuits

Development Status of Key Technologies for Optoelectronic Integrated Circuit Manufacturing

Optoelectronic integrated circuit (OEIC) technology has attracted considerable research attention. Studies have achieved numerous breakthroughs in the basic scientific problems, key technologies, demonstration applications, and industrial promotions of OEIC. This study details the technical process, development status, existing problems, and future research trends of the design, manufacturing, and packaging of OEIC to provide a systematic summary of OEIC technology.

A CsPbBr3/CdS-based hybrid bidirectional optoelectronic device with light-emitting, modulation, and detection functions

Optoelectronic integrated circuits, with a broad photonic transportation bandwidth, have emerged as a promising solution to fulfill the escalating demands for high-volume information transportation and processing. However, challenges persist in developing optoelectronic integrated circuits based on low-dimensional nanostructures, including limited integration density and high energy consumption. Here, we demonstrate a bidirectional optoelectronic device by integrating a light-emitting/harvesting CsPbBr3 nanoplate with a waveguiding/modulating/detecting CdS nanobelt. By configuring the CsPbBr3 nanoplate in a Schottky-type device structure with a metal electrode, bright electroluminescence was attained at a bias voltage of 18 V. Thanks to the electric field-tuned phonon-coupling effect, the waveguided light in the CdS nanobelt exhibited a high modulation depth of up to 94%, rendering it an excellent building block as optical modulators and optical switches. Moreover, the integrated nanostructure device showcased functionality in the photodetection mode. The proposed device architecture holds promise for broader applications, potentially extending to other perovskite-coupled II–VI semiconductor optoelectronic integrated circuits for expanding integration capacity and enhancing optoelectronic performance.

Accurate time-domain and frequency-domain co-simulation approach for OEICs design with Verilog-A.

Optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) have enhanced integration and communication capabilities in various applications. With the continued increase in complexity and scale, the need for an accurate and efficient simulation environment compatible with photonics and electronics becomes paramount. This paper introduces a method using the Verilog-A hardware language in the electronic design automation (EDA) platform to create equivalent circuit and compact models for photonic devices, considering their dispersion, polarization, multimode, and bidirectional transmission characteristics. These models can be co-simulated alongside electrical components in the electronic simulator, covering both the time and frequency domains simultaneously. Model parameters can be modified at any stage of the design process. Using the full link of an optoelectronic transceiver as an example, analyses from our Verilog-A model system show a mean absolute percentage error of 1.55% in the time-domain and 0.0318% in the frequency-domain when compared to the commercial co-simulation system (e.g., Virtuoso-INTERCONNECT). This underscores the accuracy and efficiency of our approach in OEICs design. By adopting this method, designers are enabled to conduct both electrical-specific and photonic-specific circuit analyses, as well as perform optoelectronic co-simulation within a unified platform seamlessly.

Giant optical absorption of a PtSe2-on-silicon waveguide in mid-infrared wavelengths.

Low-dimensional platinum diselenide (PtSe2) is a promising candidate for high-performance optoelectronics in the short-wavelength mid-infrared band due to its high carrier mobility, excellent stability, and tunable bandgap. However, light usually interacts moderately with low-dimensional PtSe2, limiting the optoelectronic responses of PtSe2-based devices. Here we demonstrated a giant optical absorption of a PtSe2-on-silicon waveguide by integrating a ten-layer PtSe2 film on an ultra-thin silicon waveguide. The weak mode confinement in the ultra-thin waveguide dramatically increases the waveguide mode overlap with the PtSe2 film. Our experimental results show that the absorption coefficient of the PtSe2-on-silicon waveguide is in the range of 0.0648 dB μm-1 to 0.0704 dB μm-1 in a spectral region of 2200 nm to 2300 nm wavelengths. Furthermore, we also studied the optical absorption in an ultra-thin silicon microring resonator. Our study provides a promising approach to developing PtSe2-on-silicon hybrid optoelectronic integrated circuits.

Steady-State Characterization for Capture and Escape Lifetimes of 2-D Electron Gas in Light-Emitting Transistors

Quantum-well-based heterojunction bipolar light-emitting transistors (HBLETs or LETs) could work as candidate devices in optical communication and optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) due to their multiport operation properties. The recombination process and capture-escape dynamics of carriers limit the device modulation bandwidth. The knowledge of capture and escape lifetimes is necessary to improve bandwidths. Here, we present a steady-state procedure rather than dynamic ones such as time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) or small-signal response to characterize the two lifetimes of LETs. On the experimental side, we perform dc measurements to investigate the electrical characteristics of the base–emitter (BE) junction of LETs. Theoretically, we formulate the charge-controlled model with continuity equations for electron concentrations in unbound and bound subbands of the quantum well (QW). The related capture and escape lifetimes are extracted with analytical expressions and the current gains of LETs. In the end, we verify our model by comparing the measured bandwidths to the unity gain bandwidths of this study.

Integrated Optics: Platforms and Fabrication Methods

Integrated optics is a field of study and technology that focuses on the design, fabrication, and application of optical devices and systems using integrated circuit technology. It involves the integration of various optical components, such as waveguides, couplers, modulators, detectors, and lasers, into a single substrate. One of the key advantages of integrated optics is its compatibility with electronic integrated circuits. This compatibility enables seamless integration of optical and electronic functionalities onto the same chip, allowing efficient data transfer between optical and electronic domains. This synergy is crucial for applications such as optical interconnects in high-speed communication systems, optical sensing interfaces, and optoelectronic integrated circuits. This entry presents a brief study on some of the widely used and commercially available optical platforms and fabrication methods that can be used to create photonic integrated circuits.

Ultrafast Carbon Nanotube Photodetectors with Bandwidth over 60 GHz

The future interconnect links in intra- and inter-chip require the photodetector with high bandwidth, ultra-wide waveband, compact footprint, low-cost, and compatible integration process with silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Here, we demonstrate a CMOS-compatible carbon nanotube (CNT) photodetector that exhibits high responsivity, high bandwidth and broad spectral operation over all optical telecommunication band based on high-purity CNT arrays. The ultrafast CNT photodetector demonstrates the 100 Gbit/s Nyquist-shaped on-off-keying (OOK) signal transmission, which can address the demand for high-speed optical interconnects in and between data centers. Furthermore, the photodetector exhibits a bandwidth over 60 GHz by scaling down the active area to 20 {\mu}m2. As the CNT photodetectors are fabricated by doping-free process, it also provides a cost-effective solution to integrate CNT photonic devices with CNT-based CMOS integrated circuits. Our work paves a way for future CNT-based high-speed optical interconnects and optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs).

Semiconducting SWCNT Photo Detector for High Speed Switching Through Single Halo Doping

The method opted for accuracy, and no existing studies are based on this method. A design and characteristic survey of a new small band gap semiconducting Single Wall Carbon Nano Tube (SWCNT) Field Effect Transistor as a photodetector is carried out. In the proposed device, better performance is achieved by increasing the diameter and introducing a new single halo (SH) doping in the channel length of the CNTFET device. This paper is a study and analysis of the performance of a Carbon Nano Tube Field Effect Transistor (CNTFET) as a photodetector using the self-consistent Poisson and Green function method. The 2D self-consistent Poisson and Green’s function method for various optical intensities and wavelength simulate this proposed photodetector. The performance study is based on the simulation of drain current, transconductance, sub-threshold swing, cut-off frequency, gain, directivity, and quantum efficiency under dark and illuminated conditions. These quantum simulation results show that cut-off frequency increases while there is an increase in diameter. The proposed SH-CNTFET provides better performance in terms of higher gain and directivity than conventional CNTFET (C-CNTFET). This device will be helpful in optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEIC) receivers due to its superior performance.

Low voltage AC electroluminescence in silicon MOS capacitors

Low power silicon based light source and detector are attractive for on-chip photonic circuits given their ease of process integration. However, conventional silicon light emitting diodes emit photons with energies near the band edge where the corresponding silicon photodetectors lack responsivity. On the other hand, previously reported hot carrier electroluminescent silicon devices utilizing a reverse biased diode require high operating voltages. Here, we investigate hot carrier electroluminescence in silicon metal–oxide–semiconductor capacitors operating under transient voltage conditions. During each voltage transient, large energy band bending is created at the edge of the source contact, much larger than what is achievable at a steady state. As a result, electrons and holes are injected efficiently from a single source contact into the silicon channel at the corresponding voltage transient, where they subsequently undergo impact ionization and phonon-assisted interband recombination. Notably, we show low voltage operation down to 2.8 V by using a 20 nm thick high-κ gate dielectric. We show further voltage scaling is possible by reducing the gate dielectric thickness, thus presenting a low voltage platform for silicon optoelectronic integrated circuits.

Silicon Photonics Sensors for Biophotonic Applications—A Review

In the last two decades, biosensors have made a remarkable development in the area of food quality monitoring, drug discovery, environmental monitoring, soil quality monitoring, the healthcare industry, and medical point of care diagnosis. The integrated silicon photonic-based biosensors using the evanescent wave (EW) field and their advantages in terms of high sensitivity, high reliability, compactness, robustness, and miniaturization are discussed in this review. Specifically, different silicon photonic device configurations based on the EW field, such as interferometer-, resonator-, photonic crystal-, and Bragg grating-based biosensors, are discussed in detail. Moreover, various performance improvement strategies, such as advance and fundamental approaches, including Vernier effect-based systems in the cascaded form of the Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI)-ring resonator, are also reviewed. This article further reviews the usage of silicon-photonic biosensors for lab-on-chip (LOC) applications, including optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs). The state-of-the-art performance of different biosensors technologies is also comparatively discussed.

A Monolithic Optoelectronic Integrated Circuit of InP p-i-n/Double HBTs Through Transfer-Printing Fabrication

In this letter, we present a photoreceiver front-end circuit that consists of an InP p-i-n photodetector (PIN PD) on an InP transimpedance amplifier (TIA) with double HBTs (DHBTs), in which the key integrated fabrication route of a transfer-printing (TP) process is introduced. Prior to integration, PDs and TIAs are individually fabricated on their respective wafers. Then, a discrete PD with only active layers is transferred onto the destination on a TIA wafer, thereafter, an on-chip coplanar waveguide connection is integrated. The PIN PD and DHBT TIA exhibit excellent performance, characterized by a responsivity of 0.51 A/W at <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1.55~\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> with a bandwidth of 20 GHz and a transimpedance gain of 36 dB <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\Omega $ </tex-math></inline-formula> with a bandwidth of 27 GHz, respectively. Finally, the monolithically integrated circuit demonstrates a better frequency response by maximally reducing the parasitic effect, with an open clear eye diagram under a 20 Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero pattern, which evidently manifests its ability for ultrahigh-rate data operation. The present work, by employing a TP process, overcomes the issues in integrating discrete optoelectronic devices and proposes a unique approach for monolithic optoelectronic integrated circuit fabrication.

Special issue “optical communications, sensing, and laser applications”

Special issue “optical communications, sensing, and laser applications”

Sensitivity Enhancement of Group Refractive Index Biosensor through Ring-Down Interferograms of Microring Resonator.

In recent years, silicon-on-insulator substrates have been utilized for high-speed and low-power electronic components. Because of the high refractive index contrast of the silicon wire, its photonic device footprint can be significantly reduced. Moreover, the silicon photonic process is compatible with a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor fabrication, which will benefit the high-density optoelectronic integrated circuits development. Researchers have recently proposed using the microring resonator (MRR) for label-free biosensing applications. The high-quality factor caused by the substantial electric field enhancement within the ring makes the MRR a good candidate for biomolecule detection under low analyte concentration conditions. This paper proposes an MRR chip to be a biosensor on the silicon platform through the relative displacement between the spatial ring-down interferograms at various cladding layers. The higher-order ring-down of the spatial interference wave packet will enhance the biosensing sensitivity after optimizing the coupling, MRR length, and the optical source bandwidth at the fixed optical waveguide loss. Finally, a typical sensitivity of 642,000 nm per refractive index unit is demonstrated under 0.1 μW minimum optical power detection for an MRR with a 100 μm radius. Higher sensitivity can be executed by a narrow bandwidth and lower silicon wire propagation loss.

Creation of magnetic thin film integrated optical non-reciprocal element using supersonic free jet PVD method

Professor Hideki Yokoi, Department of Electronic Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan, is focused on developing a magneto-optical waveguide with a semiconductor waveguide layer. He and his team are using wafer bonding technology and a new film forming method called the supersonic free jet PVD method to create an optical waveguide with an arbitrary layer structure. The research of Yokoi and the team is paving the way for the possibility to easily manufacture an optical waveguide of any layer structure, which will lead to the development of magneto-optical waveguides for optical nonreciprocal elements, optical integrated circuits that will integrate the optical elements with various functions, and optoelectronic integrated circuits. In addition, by replacing electrical wiring with optical wiring, there will be a suppression of heat loss and reduction of power consumption, reaping environmental benefits. Yokoi and the team are working alongside the International Research Centre for Green Electronics (IRCGE), which aims to contribute to green innovation. Ultimately, Yokoi hopes his findings will have benefits that will expand beyond the field of optical communications, including a positive environmental impact through reduced power consumption.

Integrated optoelectronics with two-dimensional materials

<p indent="0mm">As we enter the post-Moore era, heterogeneous optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) are attracting significant attention as an alternative approach to scaling to smaller-sized transistors. Two-dimensional (2D) materials, offering a range of intriguing optoelectronic properties as semiconductors, semimetals, and insulators, provide great potential for developing next-generation heterogeneous OEICs. For instance, Fermi levels of 2D materials can be tuned by applying electrical voltages, while their atomically thin geometries are inherently suited for the fabrication of planar devices without suffering from lattice mismatch. Since the first graphene-on-silicon OEICs were demonstrated in 2011, 2D-material heterogeneous OEICs have significantly progressed. To date, researchers have a better understanding of the importance of interface states on the optical properties of chip-integrated 2D materials. Moreover, there has been impressive progress towards the use of 2D materials for waveguide-integrated lasers, modulators, and photodetectors. In this review, we summarize the history, status, and trend of integrated optoelectronics with 2D materials.

Multiscale Compact Modelling of UTC-Photodiodes Enabling Monolithic Terahertz Communication Systems Design

Due to the continuous increase in data traffic, it is becoming imperative to develop communication systems capable of meeting the throughput requirements. Monolithic Opto-Electronic Integrated Circuits (OEICs) are ideal candidates to meet these demands. With that in mind, we propose a compact and computationally efficient model for Uni-Traveling Carrier Photodiodes (UTC-PDs) which are a key component of OEICs because of their high bandwidth and RF output power. The developed compact model is compatible with existing SPICE design software, enabling the design of beyond 5G and terahertz (THz) communication circuits and systems. By introducing detailed physical equations describing, in particular, the dark current, the intrinsic series resistance, and the junction capacitance, the model accurately captures the physical characteristics of the UTC-PD. The model parameter extraction follows a scalable extraction methodology derived from that of the bipolar and CMOS technologies. A detailed description of the de-embedding process is presented. Excellent agreement between the compact model and measurements has been achieved, showing model versatility across various technologies and scalability over several geometries.

Finite Element Analysis of Miniature Thermoelectric Cooler for the Thermal Management of Si-Based Photonic Integrated Circuits

Today’s electronic and photonic devices are facing a bottleneck in removing and managing the excess heat flux due to its progressive miniaturization and integration density. Generation of high heat flux during device operation has become a major challenge and makes the Si-based photonic integrated circuits (PIC) less efficient to function at the desired temperature. Hence, it is essential to remove/ manage the heat flux to maintain efficient and reliable operation of the device. The state-of-art solution to control device temperature involves macro thermoelectric coolers (TEC), which are inefficient in meeting the thermal management requirement for photonic integrated circuits (PIC). Thermal management of these optoelectronic chips using a micro-thermoelectric coolers (µTECs) can be a better proposition, as it can be integrated directly on the photonic chip by removing the large macro-TECs, which will allow precise control of the thermal load [1]. µTECs integrated with optoelectronic devices (lasers, modulators, etc.) can handle large heat flux, with fast response time and can provide high device performance with reduced cost [2].In this work, a comprehensive study focusing on the cooling performance of the µTECs for a photonic package is performed by finite element method (FEM) using COMSOL Multiphysics software. All the simulations and design optimizations have been done following the microfabrication constraints along with the realistic heat flux scenarios. In order to enable the full potential of silicon-based photonic devices, we considered Si as the substrate. The effect of parameters such as load current, the thickness and shape of the thermoelectric pillars, thickness of the interconnect material and number of thermoelectric pillars on device cooling performance are optimized. It is known that bismuth-telluride (Bi-Te) based thermoelectric materials currently have the highest cooling performance near room temperature. For design optimization, first, a single uni-pair is considered and thermoelectric properties of electrodeposited CuTe and BiSbTe are selected as the n- and p-type thermoelectric materials [3, 4]. Also, the effect of substrate, which significantly influences the heat flow between the µTEC and atmosphere is studied. The results indicate that with increasing the leg height, first ΔT increases and later decreases due to joule heating while the coefficient of performance (COP) decreases. A range of load current (I) between 5 to 450 mA is applied and a maximum temperature difference of around 35 K is achieved at 250 mA. In summary, µTEC can be better choice as opposed to macro-TEC in terms of energy efficiency with the benefit of using less toxic materials, which may pave the way of future highly integrated optoelectronic circuits. Acknowledgments This work received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 825114 (SmartVista). This publication has emanated from research supported in part by a research grant from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and is co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund under Grant Number 15/IA/3160, 12/RC/2276 and 13/RC/2077 References R. Enright, S. Lei, K. Nolan, I. Mathews, A. Shen, G. Levaufre, R. Frizzell, G. H. Duan and D. Hernon, Bell Labs Technical Journal, 19, 31 (2014). S. Corbett, D. Gautam, S. Lal, K. Yu, N. Balla, G. Cunningham, K. M. Razeeb, R. Enright and D. McCloskey, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 13, 1773 (2021). S. Lal, K. M. Razeeb and D. Gautam, ACS Applied Energy Materials, 3, 3262 (2020). S. Lal, D. Gautam and K. M. Razeeb, APL Materials, 7, 031102 (2019). Figure 1

Hybrid integrated photonic platforms: opinion

While photonic integration has made remarkable progress in recent years, there is no one integrated photonic platform that offers all desired functionalities and manufacturability on the same platform. GaAs and InP-based optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) were very popular in the past decades; however, silicon photonics has recently emerged as a preferred platform due to its high-density and high-yield manufacturability leveraging the CMOS ecosystem, although it lacks optical gain, the Pockels effect, and other characteristics. On the other hand, hybrid photonic integration adds new and diverse functionalities to the host materials like silicon. This opinion paper investigates hybrid integrated photonic platforms, and discusses the new functionalities added to the silicon CMOS photonic platform.

Simulink implementation of a new optoelectronic integrated circuit: stability analysis and infinite-scroll attractor

In this paper a 6-D optoelectronic system consisting of an optical injected semiconductor laser driven by a resonant tunneling diode is reported. A stability analysis of the hybrid system is analytically and numerically performed and paramount role of the effective gain coefficient is stuck out in the framework of new stability control. As a result, this parameter allows improving the accuracy of the stability study by circumscribing locked and unlocked regions. Besides, a narrow area of stability is pointed up within the sea of unstable points from which a complex fractal attractor so-called infinite-scroll attractor is highligted. Thereby, Simulink shows generation effectiveness of infinite-scroll attractor erratically interpersed by laminar phases. Also dynamics of Lyapunov exponents has confirmed that it refers to a strange fractal attractor. Moreover chaos control is structurally carried out by direct current polarisation.