Metal-Optic Nanophotonic Modulators in Standard CMOS Technology

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel fabless method to integrate active nanophotonics into standard CMOS processes by co-designing metal layers, enabling high-speed optical modulators for advanced applications.

Contribution

Introducing a zero-change nanophotonics approach in 65nm CMOS by co-designing metal layers for optical functions, achieving significantly faster modulators without altering existing fabrication processes.

Findings

Plasmonic liquid crystal modulators with 100x faster switching speeds

Method compatible with standard CMOS fabrication

Potential for widespread optical integration in electronics

Abstract

Integrating nanophotonics with electronics promises revolutionary applications, from LiDAR to holographic displays. Although silicon photonics is maturing, realizing active nanophotonics in the ubiquitous bulk CMOS processes remains challenging. We introduce a fabless approach to embed active nanophotonics in bulk CMOS by co-designing the back-end-of-line metal layers for optical functionality. Using a 65nm CMOS process, we create plasmonic liquid crystal modulators with switching speeds 100x faster than commercial technologies. This zero-change nanophotonics method could equip mass-produced chips with optical communications, sensing and imaging. Embedding nanophotonics in the dominant electronics platform democratizes nanofabrication, spawning technologies from chip-scale LiDAR to holographic light-field displays.