Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Communication and computing devices are the bedrock of the information technology revolution. The monolithic integration of optical and electrical functions on one platform would provide many benefits including higher density, higher speed, reduced packaging costs, increased functionality, and the use of well-established low-cost silicon fabrication techniques. Naturally, silicon is the platform of choice for monolithic integration. The reasons are: 1) the maturity of the processing technology, high performance and low cost of Si materials; 2) Si and silicon dioxide, in combination, are excellent materials for making small passive optical components (e.g., micro-ring resonator-based filters), due to their large optical index of refraction difference; 3) SiGe, the most compatible semiconductor to Si, is a good choice for optical modulation and detection. This area has attracted enormous academic and industrial attention (e.g., Intel and Luxtera's electronic-photonic silicon chips), and has been extended for applications beyond optical communications ($e.g.$ lab-on-chip, NEMS mass sensors, quantum-optical photonic chips, sensors). By taking advantage of CMOS foundries for the fabrication of silicon photonic devices, literally thousands of optical components can be fabricated on a single chip. This large number of devices requires a similar tool as used in the electronics industry for automated electronic probing -- an automated optical probe station -- and will be used in the following silicon photonics research projects: This grant is for an automated nanophotonic circuit characterization system. We have designed and will assemble this system using the commercial components. The system consists of two sets of micro/nanopositioners independently controlled via computer to position two optical fibres (input and output), a sample stage, and a tunable laser system to measure the optical response of devices.