Photonic integration technology without semiconductor etching

Abstract

Monolithic device integration is more and more essential for the realisation of micro and optoelectronic circuits, which can fulfil complex functions with higher performances. The most prevalent approach in the fabrication of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) is the butt-coupling. This can be done in one step by Selective Area Growth (SAG) carried out by Metalorganic Vapour Phase Epitaxy (MOVPE) or by localised selective regrowth by Chemical Beam Epitaxy (CBE). The former technique inconvenient is that the structures of the devices cannot be quite different, especially, if one of them should be doped, the others will be doped as well. The latter method needs one epitaxial step for each integrated structure and requires several etching steps, which can deteriorate the performances of the regrown devices. This study proposes a new procedure to integrate several devices without any etching step.