Silicon light-emitting transistor for on-chip optical interconnection

The authors propose a light-emitting field-effect transistor with the active layer made of the ultrathin single crystal silicon with the (100) surface orientation. The ambipolar carrier injections from the highly impurity doped regions to the ultrathin silicon are achieved in complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor compatible planar structures and the optical intensities are controlled by the gate voltage. By using the device, they have demonstrated that a simple electrical signal can be transferred by light and detected on the same silicon chip as photocurrents controlled by the gate bias.