Versatile butt-joint regrowth for dense photonic integration

Abstract

Butt-joint regrowth is widely used in photonic integration, but it has been challenging to break the density-quality tradeoff due to the edge growth rate enhancement (GRE) effect. In this work, we propose a scheme to circumvent this tradeoff by using large regrowth masks whose centers are exposed to epi-growth for neutralization of the excessive species. With the GRE under control, epi-stacks with arbitrarily large sizes supporting dense arrays can be butt-joint integrated with minimal compromise to their epitaxy quality. In our experiment, multi-quantum-well-based material of an exceptionally large area of 0.5 × 1.7 mm 2 was epitaxially integrated with passive InP material on the same wafer. A more than 20 × reduction in edge topology compared to conventional methods was achieved.