Silicon-based building blocks for VLSI on-chip optical interconnects

An all silicon-based on-chip optical interconnect is a promising candidate to overcome the electrical interconnect bottleneck. In this study, we focus on two missing optical building blocks: light sources and modulators. One- and two-dimensional photonic bandgap modulators are demonstrated. Light amplification is achieved in silicon nanocrystals and a distributed Bragg reflector is fabricated and tested to explore the possibility of a silicon laser.