Heterogeneously integrated III-V-on-Si microring resonators: A building block for programmable photonic integrated circuits

Abstract

Beyond various application-specific photonic integrated circuits (PICs), a programmable PIC comprising identically designed generic building blocks with multiple active functionalities under different operational conditions is an attractive design option. Here, we propose and demonstrate proof-of-concept experiments of a heterogeneously integrated III-V-on-Si microring resonator (MRR) as such a versatile building block. The MRR can function as an electro-optical channel add-drop switch with signal amplification, a directly modulated injection laser, or a microcavity photodetector under different electrical bias conditions. We discuss the fabrication process for our heterogeneous integration platform based on an atomic layer deposition-assisted molecular bonding technique.