半导体光子学

Semiconductor Photonics

半导体光子学是基于在半导体内操纵和控制光子运动的一门新的科学与技术。它应用于信息的传输、开关、记忆、再生和处理等。吸引着众多科学家、工程师们的巨大兴趣。现代信息高科技要求光子学技术能够传输ＴＧｂ／ｓ超大信息流，并能实现实时与高速处理，因此光子学未来的发展要求集成化，按照系统功能设计的要求，将众多具有不同功能的光子器件通过光波导的互连集成在一个基片上，并具有分立器件所不及的更优化的功能，这便是当今正迅速发展着的半导体光子集成回路（ＰＩＣ）。虽然光子技术能够实现某些重要特殊功能，但是一个有实用意义的集成系统没有电子器件的参与是不现实的。因此，未来的集成必将是光子集成（ＰＩＣ）与微电子集成的融合，这便是光子、电子集成回路。

Semiconductor photonics, as a new technique based on manipulating and controlling of photon movement in semiconductors, and applied to transmission, switching, memory, reproduction and processing of information, is attracting intensive interest of scientists and engineers.The present information technologies demand transmission of super-large information. current (like Tb/s), real-time and high-speed processing and switching from photonics. Hence, function integration is still the only way to the future of photonics. According to the function of system many photonic devices with various functions are integrated in a chip with internal optical waveguide interconnection and optimized to act better than the individual devices. This leads to a new semiconductor technology, semiconductor photonic integrated circuit (PIC), which is rapid developing.Although some partial functions could be reallzed by the operation of only photons, it is unimaginable to have a complete system of application significance without the participation of electronic devices. So the future integrated system must be a mixture of both photonic integrated and microelectronic integrated circuits,which is the so-called opto-electronic integrated circuit (OEIC).