A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) requires active and passive components, like couplers, interferometers, gratings, sources, beam splitters, detectors, sensors and so on, which must be able to communicate with the electrical world, on and off-chip.
By using optical interconnections and devices intra-chip it’s possible to overcome the bandwidth limitation and the high-power dissipation by electrical signals inside the semiconductor microchips, one of the most important problem in the modern computer system. Integrated photonics is a branch of photonics in which the optical devices are integrated on a flat surface together the electronic devices, on the same platform. Photonics is the science of manipulation, detection and generation light by using optical components that include lasers, fiber-optics and electro-optical devices in several application fields. Finally, the noise equivalent power of the device has been evaluated as high as 0.53 nW/(Hz) 1/2 at -8 V.Įven if device responsivity is still low, we believe that our insights may suggest Er/Si as a new platform for the integration of various optical functionalities on the same chip opening new frontiers in the field of low-cost silicon micro and nanophotonics. Moreover, a responsivity of 0.62 mA/W has been measured for a 3 μm-width waveguide at 1550 nm and at reverse voltage of -8 V. The Er/Si junction has been carefully electrically characterized showing a potential barrier and cut-off wavelength of 0.59 eV and 2105 nm, respectively. In this work we investigate a photodetector operating at 1550 nm whose detection mechanism is based on the internal photoemission effect through an Er/Si Schottky junction. Erbium has represented a viable solution for the realization of light sources at telecommunications wavelengths opening the path to the investigation of various photonic devices based on rare earth. In the last two decades there has been growing interest in silicon photonics and in the possibility to integrate new materials to overcome the silicon intrinsic limitations.
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