3D silicon photonic interconnects and integrated circuits based on phase matching

We propose a ‘TSV-free’ solution to create three-dimensional (3D) silicon photonic (SiPh) components and interconnects based on phase matching. The evanescent coupling between interlevel optical stacks is comprehensively studied and leveraged to achieve flexible light control and realize hetero-stack communication in a monolithic SiPh platform. Various 3D functional photonic components, such as polarizers, polarization splitters and electro-absorption modulators are proposed and investigated. The TSV-free 3D optical interconnect provides a promising path towards low-cost, high-density SiPh chips for both monolithic and hybrid platforms, and potentially enables applications in a wide variety of fields such as LiDAR, artificial intelligence and optical biosensors.