Monolithic photonic integration of suspended light emitting diode, waveguide and photodetector

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a monolithic integration of LED, waveguide, and photodetector on a GaN-on-silicon platform, enabling on-chip optical communication and sensing in the visible spectrum.

Contribution

It introduces a novel monolithic integration approach combining suspended InGaN/GaN MQW LEDs, waveguides, and photodetectors for integrated photonic systems.

Findings

Successful on-chip optical interconnect demonstration

Efficient coupling of LED emission into waveguide

Potential for active electro-optical sensing systems

Abstract

We report here a monolithic photonic integration of light emitting diode (LED) with waveguide and photodetector to build a highly-integrated photonic system to perform functionalities on the GaN-on-silicon platform. Suspended p-n junction InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) are used for device fabrication. Part of the LED emission is coupled into suspended waveguide and then, the guided light laterally propagates along the waveguide and is finally sensed by the photodetector. Planar optical communication experimentally demonstrates that the proof-of-concept monolithic photonic integration system can achieve the on-chip optical interconnects. This work paves the way towards novel active electro-optical sensing system and planar optical communication in the visible range.