Low-Voltage, High-Brightness Silicon Micro-LEDs for CMOS Photonics

Silicon photonics realized in CMOS processes has transformed computing, communications, sensing, and imaging. Although silicon is an indirect bandgap material prohibiting efficient light generation, considerable work has been conducted in the field of silicon p-n junctions emitting broadband visible...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on electron devices 2021-08, Vol.68 (8), p.3870-3875
Main Authors: Xue, J., Kim, J., Mestre, A., Tan, K. M., Chong, D., Roy, S., Nong, H., Lim, K. Y., Gray, D., Kramnik, D., Atabaki, A., Quek, E., Ram, R. J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptive optics
Brightness
Broadband
Carrier transport
CMOS
Continuous radiation
Light emission
light emitting diode (LED)
Light emitting diodes
Luminous intensity
micro-LED
Near infrared radiation
optical communication
Optical coupling
Optical variables measurement
P-n junctions
Photonics
Radiative recombination
Room temperature
Silicon
silicon photonics
Stimulated emission
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Summary:Silicon photonics realized in CMOS processes has transformed computing, communications, sensing, and imaging. Although silicon is an indirect bandgap material prohibiting efficient light generation, considerable work has been conducted in the field of silicon p-n junctions emitting broadband visible light when operating in the high-voltage reverse breakdown avalanching mode. Here, we demonstrate high-brightness near-infrared (NIR) light emission for forward-biased silicon micro-light emitting diodes (micro-LEDs) realized in an open-foundry microelectronic CMOS process-55 BCDLite-with zero modification. Under room-temperature continuous-wave operation, the external light emission intensity of over 40 mW/cm ^{{2}} at a central wavelength of 1020 nm is achieved for a 4- \mu \text {m} -diameter device at below 2.5 V. This is realized by adopting a deep vertical junction with guard ring designs that ensure carrier transport away from the device surface and material interfaces where nonradiative recombination usually dominates. Here, we also demonstrate a complete chip-to-chip communication link using only standard multimode fiber and monolithically integrated CMOS micro-LEDs and detectors.
ISSN:0018-9383
1557-9646
DOI:10.1109/TED.2021.3085541