A process for fabricating a heterostructure includes at least one elementary structure made of III-V material on the surface of a silicon-based substrate successively comprising: producing a first pattern having at least a first opening in a dielectric material on the surface of a first silicon-based substrate; a first operation for epitaxy of at least one III-V material so as to define at least one elementary base layer made of III-V material in the at least first opening; producing a second pattern in a dielectric material so as to define at least a second opening having an overlap with the elementary base layer; a second operation for epitaxy of at least one III-V material on the surface of at least the elementary base layer made of III-V material(s) so as to produce the at least elementary structure made of III-V material(s) having an outer face; an operation for transferring and assembling the at least photonic active elementary structure via its outer face, on an interface that may comprise passive elements and/or active elements, the interface being produced on the surface of a second silicon-based substrate; removing the first silicon-based substrate and the at least elementary base layer located on the elementary structure.

A silicon-photonic integrated circuit comprising a direct-bandgap-semiconductor-based active optical device that is epitaxially grown on an indirect-bandgap SOI substrate (108) is disclosed. The structure of the active optical device includes an active region (120) having quantum dots (206) made of InGaAs that are embedded in one or more confinement layers (n-InP, p-InP), where the bandgap of the confinement layers is higher than that of the quantum dots. Further the confinement-layer material is preferably lattice matched to the quantom dot material in order to supress associated crystalline defects within the material are located away from the center of its bandgap such that they suppress recombination-enhanced defect-reaction-driven degradation of the active optical device. The active optical device is epitaxially grown on a handle substrate of an SOI substrate that has a surface waveguide formed in its device layer, where the active region and the surface waveguide are at the same height above the handle wafer surface.

A method of manufacturing an electro-optically active device. The method comprising the steps of: etching a cavity on a silicon-on-insulator wafer; providing a sacrificial layer adjacent to a substrate of a lll-V semiconductor wafer; epitaxially growing an electro-optically active structure on the lll-V semiconductor wafer; etching the epitaxially grown optically active structure into an electro-optically active mesa; disposing the electro-optically active mesa in the cavity of the silicon-on-insulator wafer and bonding a surface of the electro-optically active mesa, which is distal to the sacrificial layer, to a bed of the cavity; and removing the sacrificial layer between the substrate of the lll-V semiconductor wafer and the electro-optically active mesa.

Electro-optical modulators and methods of fabrication are disclosed. An electro-optical modulator includes a Mach-Zehnder interferometer containing an intrinsic silicon layer semiconductor layer and a coplanar waveguide. Signals from the coplanar waveguide are capacitively coupled to the Mach-Zehnder interferometer through first and second dielectric layers.

A single photon source comprises a photon emitter (10), an excitation waveguide (30) arranged to direct excitation photons having a first polarisation direction into the photon emitter, and a collection waveguide (42) arranged to collect photons having a second polarisation direction from the photon emitter. The first polarisation direction is coupled to a first exciton state of the photon emitter and the second polarisation direction is non-parallel to the first polarisation direction and is coupled to a second exciton state of the photon emitter, and the first and second exciton states have substantially equal energies.

Photonic integrated circuits on silicon are disclosed. By bonding a wafer of HI-V material as an active region to silicon and removing the substrate, the lasers, amplifiers, modulators, and other devices can be processed using standard photolithographic techniques on the silicon substrate. The coupling between the silicon waveguide and the III-V gain region allows for integration of low threshold lasers, tunable lasers, and other photonic integrated circuits with Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuits.

A germanium waveguide is formed from a P-type silicon substrate that is coated with a heavily-doped N-type germanium layer and a first N-type doped silicon layer. Trenches are etched into the silicon substrate to form a stack of a substrate strip, a germanium strip, and a first silicon strip. This structure is then coated with a silicon nitride layer.

A photonic integrated circuit platform includes a substrate, a first oxide layer disposed on the substrate and including an insulating transparent oxide, and a first optical element layer disposed on the first oxide layer and including a semiconductor material. The photonic integrated circuit platform further includes a second optical element layer disposed on the first optical element layer and including an insulating material different from the insulating transparent oxide of the first oxide layer, the second optical element layer further including a compound semiconductor material different from the semiconductor material of the first optical element layer, a second oxide layer disposed on the second optical element layer and including an insulating transparent oxide, and a plurality of optical elements formed by patterning the first optical element layer or the second optical element layer.

Electro-optical modulators and methods of fabrication are disclosed. An electro-optical modulator includes a Mach-Zehnder interferometer containing an intrinsic silicon layer semiconductor layer and a coplanar waveguide. Signals from the coplanar waveguide are capacitively coupled to the Mach-Zehnder interferometer through first and second dielectric layers.

Electro-optical modulators and methods of fabrication are disclosed. An electro-optical modulator includes a Mach-Zehnder interferometer formed in a substrate removed semiconductor layer and a coplanar waveguide. Signals from the coplanar waveguide are capacitively coupled to the Mach-Zehnder interferometer through first and second dielectric layers.