Optoelectronic integration in silicon-on-insulator technologies

Established silicon microelectronics fabrication techniques can be largely exploited to fabricate low-loss, low-cost and high volume optical integrated devices. Because of the availability of a buried insulator layer underneath a thin monocrystalline silicon film, Silicon-On-Insulator substrates are currently shown to be a natural candidate for the integration of guided-wave optics components working at the fiber-optical communications wavelengths of 1.33 and 1.55 /spl mu/m. In this paper, the authors review the basic principles of optical waveguides on SOI materials and describe some recent realizations based on optoelectronic system integration in SOI technologies (waveguides, switches, phase modulator or shifter, etc.).