Graphene thermal infrared emitters integrated into silicon photonic waveguides

Cost-efficient and easily integrable broadband mid-infrared (mid-IR) sources would significantly enhance the application space of photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Thermal incandescent sources are superior to other common mid-IR emitters based on semiconductor materials in terms of PIC compatibil...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2023-08
Main Authors: Negm, Nour, Zayouna, Sarah, Parhizkar, Shayan, Pen-Sheng Lin, Po-Han, Huang, Suckow, Stephan, Schroeder, Stephan, De Luca, Eleonora, Floria Ottonello Briano, Quellmalz, Arne, Duesberg, Georg S, Niklaus, Frank, Gylfason, Kristinn B, Lemme, Max C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Black body radiation
Broadband
Coupling
Emitters
Graphene
High temperature
Infrared radiation
Integrated circuits
Photonics
Production costs
Semiconductor materials
Silicon
Thermal simulation
Two dimensional materials
Waveguides
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Summary:Cost-efficient and easily integrable broadband mid-infrared (mid-IR) sources would significantly enhance the application space of photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Thermal incandescent sources are superior to other common mid-IR emitters based on semiconductor materials in terms of PIC compatibility, manufacturing costs, and bandwidth. Ideal thermal emitters would radiate directly into the desired modes of the PIC waveguides via near-field coupling and would be stable at very high temperatures. Graphene is a semi-metallic two-dimensional material with comparable emissivity to thin metallic thermal emitters. It allows maximum coupling into waveguides by placing it directly into their evanescent fields. Here, we demonstrate graphene mid-IR emitters integrated with photonic waveguides that couple directly into the fundamental mode of silicon waveguides designed for a wavelength of 4,2 {\mu}m relevant for CO\({_2}\) sensing. High broadband emission intensity is observed at the waveguide-integrated graphene emitter. The emission at the output grating couplers confirms successful coupling into the waveguide mode. Thermal simulations predict emitter temperatures up to 1000{\deg}C, where the blackbody radiation covers the mid-IR region. A coupling efficiency {\eta}, defined as the light emitted into the waveguide divided by the total emission, of up to 68% is estimated, superior to data published for other waveguide-integrated emitters.
ISSN:2331-8422