Mid-infrared integrated photonics on silicon: a perspective

• Main Authors: Lin, Hongtao (Contributor), Luo, Zhengqian (Contributor), Gu, Tian (Contributor), Kimerling, Lionel C (Contributor), Wada, Kazumi (Contributor), Agarwal, Anuradha (Contributor), Hu, Juejun (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Materials Science and Engineering (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Materials Processing Center (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2018-05-02T17:09:27Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 The emergence of silicon photonics over the past two decades has established silicon as a preferred substrate platform for photonic integration. While most silicon-based photonic components have so far been realized in the near-infrared (near-IR) telecommunication bands, the mid-infrared (mid-IR, 2-20-μm wavelength) band presents a significant growth opportunity for integrated photonics. In this review, we offer our perspective on the burgeoning field of mid-IR integrated photonics on silicon. A comprehensive survey on the state-of-the-art of key photonic devices such as waveguides, light sources, modulators, and detectors is presented. Furthermore, on-chip spectroscopic chemical sensing is quantitatively analyzed as an example of mid-IR photonic system integration based on these basic building blocks, and the constituent component choices are discussed and contrasted in the context of system performance and integration technologies. Keywords: mid-IR; integrated photonics; silicon photonics; spectrometer; optical sensor