Principal Investigator Kazumi Wada
Light is an enabler to enhance the performance of Si-LSIs. It has not been however shown that light can be manipulated on a chip of ~1 cm square. The first challenge making photonic devices small has been achieved using "high-index contrast optics" on a chip. The second challenge reducing materials diversity in photonics has been done in photodetectors. His primary contribution was a prototyping of Ge photodetectors with a extended broadband response with strain and a high transmission Si waveguides. His current interests are focused on Si-based modulators and light emitters. The final challenge in Si-based photonics is to reduce devices diversity. Essential device functions in photonics diverse too many, while in electronics there is only on transistors. Conceptual works to reduce the diversity are going on.