Abstract

Experimental results on an all-silicon 1.3 µm 2 × 2 optical switch are presented in this paper. Waveguiding of 1.3 µm light has been shown to be feasible in silicon with little attenuation expected for doping concentrations below 10¹⁷cm⁻³. ⁽¹⁾ This and other state-of-the-art developments⁽²⁾ has led to the monolithic opto-electronic device under study in this work. A schematic view of the integrated device structure is shown in figure 1. The active region is integrated at the crossing intersection of two raised rib channel waveguides. Each device chip consists of three individual bi directional 2×2 devices with different crossing angles and rib widths. The chip is polished in a special mounting jig to delineate the ridge waveguide ends. Electrooptical interactions are induced by actively altering the refractive index profile under a metallurgical p+/n junction at the waveguide intersection region shown in figure 2. An index decrease in this region is created with injected carriers.⁽¹⁾ Refractive index change near the junction is estimated to be 1.5 × 10⁻³ for 10¹⁸cm⁻³ free holes.⁽³⁾

© 1987 Optical Society of America