Researchers Tame Silicon to Interact with Light for Next-generation Microelectronics
June 10, 2021 | SkoltechEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from RAS Institute for Physics of Microstructures, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, ITMO University, Lomonosov Moscow State University, and A.M. Prokhorov General Physics Institute have found a way to increase photoluminescence in silicon, the notoriously poor emitter and absorber of photons at the heart of all modern electronics. This discovery may pave the way to photonic integrated circuits, boosting their performance. The paper was published in the journal Laser and Photonics Reviews.
“Natural selection” in semiconductor technology over almost 80 years has led to silicon emerging as the predominant material for chips. Most digital microcircuits are created using CMOS technology (CMOS), which stands for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor. Yet manufacturers have hit a wall on the way to increasing their performance even further: heat release due to high density of elements in CMOS circuits.
One potential workaround is reducing heat generation by switching from metallic connections between elements in microcircuits to optical ones: unlike electrons in conductors, photons can travel giant distances in wavegiudes with minimal heat losses.
“The transition to CMOS-compatible photonic integrated circuits will also make it possible to significantly increase the information transfer rate within a chip and between individual chips in modern computers, making them faster. Unfortunately, silicon itself weakly interacts with light: it is a poor emitter and a poor absorber of photons. Therefore, taming silicon to interact with light effectively is an essential task,” Sergey Dyakov, senior researcher at Skoltech and the first author of the paper, says.
Dyakov and his colleagues have managed to enhance silicon-based photoluminescence using germanium quantum dots and a specially designed photonic crystal. They used a resonator based on bound states in the continuum, an idea borrowed from quantum mechanics: these resonators create effective confinement of light inside them since the symmetry of the electromagnetic field inside the resonator does not correspond to the symmetry of the electromagnetic waves of the surrounding space.
They also chose germanium nanoislands as a source of luminescence, which can be embedded into the desired place on a silicon chip. “The use of bound states in the continuum increased luminescence intensity by more than a hundred times,” Dyakov says, noting that it can lead us to CMOS-compatible photonic integrated circuits.
“The results open up new possibilities for creating efficient radiation sources based on silicon, built into the circuits of modern microelectronics with optical signal processing. There are currently lots of groups working on creating light-emitting diodes based on such structures and the principles of their coupling with other elements on an optoelectronic chip,” Professor Nikolay Gippius, head of Nanophotonics Theory group at the Center of Photonics and Quantum Materials at Skoltech, says.
Read the original article, here.
Suggested Items
Worldwide Silicon Wafer Shipments Dip 5% in Q1 2024
05/01/2024 | SEMIWorldwide silicon wafer shipments decreased 5.4% quarter-over-quarter to 2,834 million square inches in the first quarter of 2024, a 13.2% drop from the 3,265 million square inches recorded during the same quarter last year, the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) reported in its quarterly analysis of the silicon wafer industry.
Cadence Unveils Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 Systems
04/18/2024 | Cadence Design SystemsThe Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems offer increased capacity, and scale from job sizes of 16 million gates up to 48 billion gates, so the largest SoCs can be tested as a whole rather than just partial models, ensuring proper functionality and performance.
Coherent Secures $15M in Chips Act Funding Through the CLAWS Hub
04/12/2024 | CoherentCoherent Corp., a leader in wide- and ultrawide-bandgap semiconductors, announced that it secured $15 million in funding from the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022 that provided the Department of Defense (DoD) with $2 billion to strengthen and revitalize the U.S. semiconductor supply chain.
Imec Demonstrates Compact 32-Channel Silicon-Based Wavelength Filter with Low Loss and High Tuning Efficiency
04/01/2024 | ImecIn a top-scored paper at the OFC Conference (San Diego), imec, a world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, is presenting a major advancement in silicon-based wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) capability.
Synopsys Announces New AI-Driven EDA, IP and Systems Design Solutions At SNUG Silicon Valley
03/25/2024 | PRNewswireSynopsys, Inc. kicked off its annual flagship Synopsys User Group (SNUG) conference in Silicon Valley at the Santa Clara Convention Center with a keynote presentation by Synopsys president and CEO Sassine Ghazi. Ghazi discussed the unprecedented innovation opportunities and challenges that technology R&D teams face in this era of pervasive intelligence.