Silicon photonics combines wide-bandwidth capability afforded through optics with well-developed nano-fabrication technology, allowing for short-range communication at low cost, with low operating power and compact device footprints. In order to compete with traditional copper wiring, optical interconnects must be integrated vertically for maximum integration density. Crystalline silicon (c-Si) cannot be deposited; only epitaxially grown or bonded at high temperature thereby destroying the electronic devices and is consequently limited to single layer integration. Here we investigate a new silicon photonic material, hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). This material can be deposited at a low temperature 150 ~300 degree C within the CMOS thermal budget and is already available in the current fabrication process line.
Nonlinear optical effects allow ultra-fast time scale all-optical signal processing. However, in c-Si the nonlinear coefficient is low; therefore high input power is required for operation. A-Si, due to its unique band structure, has an order of magnitude higher nonlinear coefficient than c-Si. This high nonlinearity enables all-optical nonlinear applications at very low powers.
The first part of this dissertation will focus on the design and fabrication of the a-Si:H waveguide. The optical properties of the waveguide are measured and analyzed. Secondly, using the highly-nonlinear a-Si:H waveguide, I will discuss our demonstrations including: 1) broad-bandwidth wavelength conversion, 2) low power time-domain demultiplexing, 3) all optical signal regeneration, 4) short pulse characterization via frequency resolved optical gating (FROG), 5) broad-band optical parametric amplification and oscillation, and 6) correlated photon-pair generation
