Silicon On Insulator (SOI) technology, which was initially developed to improve the parasitics of the transistors in the electronic chip, has also shown great promise for silicon photonic wire waveguides. The high index contrast of Si-SiO2 has allowed for strong confinement of light and tight waveguide bends (~5 µm) and, therefore, the design of low loss photonic devices with a small footprint. An already mature SOI-based CMOS technology has enabled the fast evolution of silicon photonics devices in the last two decades. Based on these two pieces of evidence, the SOI platform can potentially enable large-scale integration of photonic devices for areas like microwave photonics, quantum information processing, lab-on-chip sensing, artificial intelligence, neuromorphic computing.
We started working at IIT Madras in 2007 as an Integrated Optoelectronic laboratory to develop a world-class silicon photonics research facility. Our first waveguide demonstration has been on the 5 µm thick SOI platform. Over the years, we have scaled our technology to sub-micron and nanoscale dimensions in conjunction with industry standards. We have developed an in-house fabrication facility for silicon-based photonic devices at the Centre for NEMS and Nanophotonics (CNNP), IIT Madras. We have demonstrated various novel and state-of-the-art passive and active photonic devices. With our expertise in device level demonstrations, we at CPPICS aim to scale our technology for large-scale integration of photonic devices and circuits for Microwave and Quantum photonics applications.