Monolithic and Two-Dimensional Integration of Silicon Photonic Microdisks With Microelectronics

A low-power silicon photonic disk resonator is monolithically and two-dimensionally integrated with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) electronics. The results show direct integration with established CMOS manufacturing lines without changing either the CMOS or the photonic process stack. Comparable results for each integration method show subpicojoule per bit modulation and the potential for further reductions. The analysis reveals that the process of integration does not limit the performance of photonic or electronic components, and clear steps to use smaller drivers to achieve sub-50 fJ/bit at 10 Gb/s operation are available.