High-Performance Silicon Photonics Using Heterogeneous Integration

The performance of silicon photonic components and integrated circuits has improved dramatically in recent years. As a key enabler, heterogeneous integration not only provides the optical gain which is absent from native Si substrates and enables complete photonic functionalities on chip, but also lays the foundation of versatile integrated photonic device performance engineering. This paper reviews recent progress of high-performance silicon photonics using heterogeneous integration, with emphasis on ultra-low-loss waveguides, single-wavelength lasers, comb lasers, and photonic integrated circuits including optical phased arrays for LiDAR and optical transceivers for datacenter interconnects.