Monolithic integration of blue light sources into silicon nitride photonic chips

TL;DR

This paper explores the theoretical design of monolithically integrated blue light sources within silicon nitride photonic chips, highlighting their potential for miniaturization, low loss, and integration as an alternative to silicon photonics.

Contribution

It presents a novel theoretical model combining drift-diffusion and Maxwell equations for optimizing heterostructures in integrated blue photonic circuits.

Findings

High transmittance coefficients achieved

Optimal geometries identified for power and polarization

Potential for hetero-integrated blue photonic circuits

Abstract

We investigate theoretically photonic chips with monolithically integrated blue light sources. According to our evaluations, a group-III nitride light emitting heterostructure can be efficiently combined with silicon nitride waveguiding layers. Low losses, high level of miniaturization and built-in light injection mechanism potentially make the selected platform attractive for applications and draw up an addition or even alternative to silicon photonics. We use a combination of drift-diffusion and Maxwell equations to build a model of the proposed multilayer structure. The model allows to choose the best parameters for both light emitting sandwich and waveguiding layers as well as to pick an optimal coupling regime. High transmittance coefficients are obtained. Various optimal geometries are analised with respect to captured power, desired polarization and excited modes. The obtained numbers are promising and allow in the future to pave the way towards hetero-integrated blue photonic circuits.