A high-speed silicon optical modulator based on a metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitor

Silicon has long been the optimal material for electronics, but it is only relatively recently that it has been considered as a material option for photonics. One of the key limitations for using silicon as a photonic material has been the relatively low speed of silicon optical modulators compared to those fabricated from III-V semiconductor compounds and/or electro-optic materials such as lithium niobate. To date, the fastest silicon-waveguide-based optical modulator that has been demonstrated experimentally has a modulation frequency of only approximately 20 MHz (refs 10, 11), although it has been predicted theoretically that a approximately 1-GHz modulation frequency might be achievable in some device structures. Here we describe an approach based on a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitor structure embedded in a silicon waveguide that can produce high-speed optical phase modulation: we demonstrate an all-silicon optical modulator with a modulation bandwidth exceeding 1 GHz. As this technology is compatible with conventional complementary MOS (CMOS) processing, monolithic integration of the silicon modulator with advanced electronics on a single silicon substrate becomes possible.     

高效能半导体器件进展与展望

随着数字时代的不断发展,中国"3060碳战略"目标的确立,绿色低碳成为我国各行业发展主要导向,其中,高效能半导体器件发展应用成为推动汽车电子、电子信息、大数据中心等领域节能降耗的重要趋势.从硅、锗为代表的传统半导体材料到现在以氮化镓、碳化硅为代表的第三代半导体材料,再到以金刚石、氧化镓为代表的超宽禁带半导体材料,支撑半导体器件的性能不断提升,促进射频通信、高功率器件、照明器件等方面革新发展.主要介绍了宽禁带半导体和超宽禁带半导体的研究进展,分析了高效能半导体在射频通讯、汽车电子、航空航天、新型显示等新兴领域的应用前景,总结了目前超宽禁带半导体发展主要面临的难点问题,结合当前相关的研究成果,展望高效能半导体科研、技术及产业的发展趋势,对于我国半导体科技与产业发展都具有重要的指导意义.     

A guest-free germanium clathrate

The challenges associated with synthesizing expanded semiconductor frameworks with cage-like crystal structures continue to be of interest. Filled low-density germanium and silicon framework structures have distinct properties that address important issues in thermoelectric phonon glass-electron crystals, superconductivity and the possibility of Kondo insulators. Interest in empty framework structures of silicon and germanium is motivated by their predicted wide optical bandgaps of the same magnitude as quantum dots and porous silicon, making them and their alloys promising materials for silicon-based optoelectronic devices. Although almost-empty Na(1-x)Si136 has already been reported, the synthesis of guest-free germanium clathrate has so far been unsuccessful. Here we report the high-yield synthesis and characteristics of germanium with the empty clathrate-II structure through the oxidation of Zintl anions in ionic liquids under ambient conditions. The approach demonstrates the potential of ionic liquids as media for the reactions of polar intermetallic phases.     

Persistent sourcing of coherent spins for multifunctional semiconductor spintronics.

Recent studies of n-type semiconductors have demonstrated spin-coherent transport over macroscopic distances, with spin-coherence times exceeding 100 ns; such materials are therefore potentially useful building blocks for spin-polarized electronics ('spintronics'). Spin injection into a semiconductor (a necessary step for spin electronics) has proved difficult; the only successful approach involves classical injection of spins from magnetic semiconductors. Other work has shown that optical excitation can provide a short (<500 ps) non-equilibrium burst of coherent spin transfer across a GaAs/ZnSe interface, but less than 10% of the total spin crosses into the ZnSe layer, leaving long-lived spins trapped in the GaAs layer (ref. 9). Here we report a 'persistent' spin-conduction mode in biased semiconductor heterostructures, in which the sourcing of coherent spin transfer lasts at least 1-2 orders of magnitude longer than in unbiased structures. We use time-resolved Kerr spectroscopy to distinguish several parallel channels of interlayer spin-coherent injection. The relative increase in spin-coherent injection is up to 500% in the biased structures, and up to 4,000% when p-n junctions are used to impose a built-in bias. These experiments reveal promising opportunities for multifunctional spin electronic devices (such as spin transistors that combine memory and logic functions), in which the amplitude and phase of the net spin current are controlled by either electrical or magnetic fields.     

Computational design of direct-bandgap semiconductors that lattice-match silicon

Crystalline silicon is an indirect-bandgap semiconductor, making it an inefficient emitter of light. The successful integration of silicon-based electronics with optical components will therefore require optically active (for example, direct-bandgap) materials that can be grown on silicon with high-quality interfaces. For well ordered materials, this effectively translates into the requirement that such materials lattice-match silicon: lattice mismatch generally causes cracks and poor interface properties once the mismatched overlayer exceeds a very thin critical thickness. But no direct-bandgap semiconductor has yet been produced that can lattice-match silicon, and previously suggested structures pose formidable challenges for synthesis. Much recent work has therefore focused on introducing compliant transition layers between the mismatched components. Here we propose a more direct solution to integrating silicon electronics with optical components. We have computationally designed two hypothetical direct-bandgap semiconductor alloys, the synthesis of which should be possible through the deposition of specific group-IV precursor molecules and which lattice-match silicon to 0.5-1% along lattice planes with low Miller indices. The calculated bandgaps (and hence the frequency of emitted light) lie in the window of minimal absorption in current optical fibres.     

Layered boron nitride as a release layer for mechanical transfer of GaN-based devices

Nitride semiconductors are the materials of choice for a variety of device applications, notably optoelectronics and high-frequency/high-power electronics. One important practical goal is to realize such devices on large, flexible and affordable substrates, on which direct growth of nitride semiconductors of sufficient quality is problematic. Several techniques--such as laser lift-off--have been investigated to enable the transfer of nitride devices from one substrate to another, but existing methods still have some important disadvantages. Here we demonstrate that hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) can form a release layer that enables the mechanical transfer of gallium nitride (GaN)-based device structures onto foreign substrates. The h-BN layer serves two purposes: it acts as a buffer layer for the growth of high-quality GaN-based semiconductors, and provides a shear plane that makes it straightforward to release the resulting devices. We illustrate the potential versatility of this approach by using h-BN-buffered sapphire substrates to grow an AlGaN/GaN heterostructure with electron mobility of 1,100?cm(2)?V(-1)?s(-1), an InGaN/GaN multiple-quantum-well structure, and a multiple-quantum-well light-emitting diode. These device structures, ranging in area from five millimetres square to two centimetres square, are then mechanically released from the sapphire substrates and successfully transferred onto other substrates.     

Nanometre-scale electronics with III-V compound semiconductors

For 50 years the exponential rise in the power of electronics has been fuelled by an increase in the density of silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transistors and improvements to their logic performance. But silicon transistor scaling is now reaching its limits, threatening to end the microelectronics revolution. Attention is turning to a family of materials that is well placed to address this problem: group III-V compound semiconductors. The outstanding electron transport properties of these materials might be central to the development of the first nanometre-scale logic transistors.     

A graphene-based broadband optical modulator

Integrated optical modulators with high modulation speed, small footprint and large optical bandwidth are poised to be the enabling devices for on-chip optical interconnects. Semiconductor modulators have therefore been heavily researched over the past few years. However, the device footprint of silicon-based modulators is of the order of millimetres, owing to its weak electro-optical properties. Germanium and compound semiconductors, on the other hand, face the major challenge of integration with existing silicon electronics and photonics platforms. Integrating silicon modulators with high-quality-factor optical resonators increases the modulation strength, but these devices suffer from intrinsic narrow bandwidth and require sophisticated optical design; they also have stringent fabrication requirements and limited temperature tolerances. Finding a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible material with adequate modulation speed and strength has therefore become a task of not only scientific interest, but also industrial importance. Here we experimentally demonstrate a broadband, high-speed, waveguide-integrated electroabsorption modulator based on monolayer graphene. By electrically tuning the Fermi level of the graphene sheet, we demonstrate modulation of the guided light at frequencies over 1?GHz, together with a broad operation spectrum that ranges from 1.35 to 1.6?μm under ambient conditions. The high modulation efficiency of graphene results in an active device area of merely 25?μm(2), which is among the smallest to date. This graphene-based optical modulation mechanism, with combined advantages of compact footprint, low operation voltage and ultrafast modulation speed across a broad range of wavelengths, can enable novel architectures for on-chip optical communications.     

Mesostructured germanium with cubic pore symmetry

Regular mesoporous oxide materials have been widely studied and have a range of potential applications, such as catalysis, absorption and separation. They are not generally considered for their optical and electronic properties. Elemental semiconductors with nanopores running through them represent a different form of framework material with physical characteristics contrasting with those of the more conventional bulk, thin film and nanocrystalline forms. Here we describe cubic mesostructured germanium, MSU-Ge-1, with gyroidal channels containing surfactant molecules, separated by amorphous walls that lie on the gyroid (G) minimal surface as in the mesoporous silica MCM-48 (ref. 2). Although Ge is a high-melting, covalent semiconductor that is difficult to prepare from solution polymerization, we succeeded in assembling a continuous Ge network using a suitable precursor for Ge(4-) atoms. Our results indicate that elemental semiconductors from group 14 of the periodic table can be made to adopt mesostructured forms such as MSU-Ge-1, which features two three-dimensional labyrinthine tunnels obeying Ia3d space group symmetry and separated by a continuous germanium minimal surface that is otherwise amorphous. A consequence of this new structure for germanium, which has walls only one nanometre thick, is a wider electronic energy bandgap (1.4 eV versus 0.66 eV) than has crystalline or amorphous Ge. Controlled oxidation of MSU-Ge-1 creates a range of germanium suboxides with continuously varying Ge:O ratio and a smoothly increasing energy gap.     

硅基半导体光电子材料的第一性原理设计

具有特定功能的半导体材料的计算设计，是计算材料科学的一个重要研究领域．由于半导体的诸多性质取决于价带顶和导带底的电子态及其中的载流子分布，因此带隙的大小和能带极值的对称性便成为半导体材料设计最受关注的问题．为了进一步解决硅基光电子集成（OEIC）技术发展的瓶颈．设计具有直接带隙特性的硅基新材料并使其成为有效的光发射体，是一项富有挑战性的工作．本文在分析大量半导体能带结构的基础上，给出类sp系列半导体由间接带隙过渡到直接带隙的主要物理机制，并以对称性概念、芯态效应和电负性差效应为基础，提出一种新的直接带隙半导体材料设计方案．根据这个方案所表达的设计思想，我们对当前十分受关注的硅基光发射材料进行了计算设计．结果发现，用VI族元素在硅生长时进行周期性插层的、具有正交和四角点群对称性的人工微结构材料VIA／Sim／VIB／Sim／VIA具有直接带隙特性．其中当m=5或奇数时，材料有四角结构对称性，而m=6或偶数时是正交结构对称性．VI“。。是在〈001〉生长方向生长的单层VI族元素．这类材料的优点在于可自然地与硅实现晶格匹配，与微电子技术相兼容，并可较容易的用现行的MBE、MOCVD或UHV-CVD生长方法实现．预期这类新材料及其相应器件的研制开发．将大大开拓全硅OEIC和硅光子集成（PIC）技术的进一步发展．     

All-optical control of light on a silicon chip

Photonic circuits, in which beams of light redirect the flow of other beams of light, are a long-standing goal for developing highly integrated optical communication components. Furthermore, it is highly desirable to use silicon--the dominant material in the microelectronic industry--as the platform for such circuits. Photonic structures that bend, split, couple and filter light have recently been demonstrated in silicon, but the flow of light in these structures is predetermined and cannot be readily modulated during operation. All-optical switches and modulators have been demonstrated with III-V compound semiconductors, but achieving the same in silicon is challenging owing to its relatively weak nonlinear optical properties. Indeed, all-optical switching in silicon has only been achieved by using extremely high powers in large or non-planar structures, where the modulated light is propagating out-of-plane. Such high powers, large dimensions and non-planar geometries are inappropriate for effective on-chip integration. Here we present the experimental demonstration of fast all-optical switching on silicon using highly light-confining structures to enhance the sensitivity of light to small changes in refractive index. The transmission of the structure can be modulated by up to 94% in less than 500 ps using light pulses with energies as low as 25 pJ. These results confirm the recent theoretical prediction of efficient optical switching in silicon using resonant structures.     

第三代宽禁带功率半导体及应用发展现状

 近年来，以碳化硅和氮化镓为代表的第三代宽禁带功率半导体迅猛发展，已成为中国功率电子行业的研发和产业化应用的重点。抓住第三代宽禁带功率半导体的战略机遇期，实现半导体材料、器件、封装模块和系统开发的自主可控，对保障工业创新体系的可持续发展至关重要。在分析第三代宽禁带功率半导体重要战略意义的基础上，综述了其材料、器件研发和产业的发展现状，阐述了碳化硅及氮化镓器件在当前环境下的应用成果，剖析了第三代半导体行业存在的关键问题。建议在国家政策的进一步领导之下，发挥行业协会和产业联盟的桥梁和纽带作用，对衬底材料、外延材料、芯片与器件设计和制造工艺等产业链各环节进行整体支撑，引导各环节间实现资源共享、强强联合，上下游互相拉动和促进，形成一个布局合理、结构完整的产业链。     

Epitaxial core-shell and core-multishell nanowire heterostructures

Semiconductor heterostructures with modulated composition and/or doping enable passivation of interfaces and the generation of devices with diverse functions. In this regard, the control of interfaces in nanoscale building blocks with high surface area will be increasingly important in the assembly of electronic and photonic devices. Core-shell heterostructures formed by the growth of crystalline overlayers on nanocrystals offer enhanced emission efficiency, important for various applications. Axial heterostructures have also been formed by a one-dimensional modulation of nanowire composition and doping. However, modulation of the radial composition and doping in nanowire structures has received much less attention than planar and nanocrystal systems. Here we synthesize silicon and germanium core-shell and multishell nanowire heterostructures using a chemical vapour deposition method applicable to a variety of nanoscale materials. Our investigations of the growth of boron-doped silicon shells on intrinsic silicon and silicon-silicon oxide core-shell nanowires indicate that homoepitaxy can be achieved at relatively low temperatures on clean silicon. We also demonstrate the possibility of heteroepitaxial growth of crystalline germanium-silicon and silicon-germanium core-shell structures, in which band-offsets drive hole injection into either germanium core or shell regions. Our synthesis of core-multishell structures, including a high-performance coaxially gated field-effect transistor, indicates the general potential of radial heterostructure growth for the development of nanowire-based devices.     

Electronic measurement and control of spin transport in silicon

The spin lifetime and diffusion length of electrons are transport parameters that define the scale of coherence in spintronic devices and circuits. As these parameters are many orders of magnitude larger in semiconductors than in metals, semiconductors could be the most suitable for spintronics. So far, spin transport has only been measured in direct-bandgap semiconductors or in combination with magnetic semiconductors, excluding a wide range of non-magnetic semiconductors with indirect bandgaps. Most notable in this group is silicon, Si, which (in addition to its market entrenchment in electronics) has long been predicted a superior semiconductor for spintronics with enhanced lifetime and transport length due to low spin-orbit scattering and lattice inversion symmetry. Despite this promise, a demonstration of coherent spin transport in Si has remained elusive, because most experiments focused on magnetoresistive devices; these methods fail because of a fundamental impedance mismatch between ferromagnetic metal and semiconductor, and measurements are obscured by other magnetoelectronic effects. Here we demonstrate conduction-band spin transport across 10 mum undoped Si in a device that operates by spin-dependent ballistic hot-electron filtering through ferromagnetic thin films for both spin injection and spin detection. As it is not based on magnetoresistance, the hot-electron spin injection and spin detection avoids impedance mismatch issues and prevents interference from parasitic effects. The clean collector current shows independent magnetic and electrical control of spin precession, and thus confirms spin coherent drift in the conduction band of silicon.     

The path to ubiquitous and low-cost organic electronic appliances on plastic

Organic electronics are beginning to make significant inroads into the commercial world, and if the field continues to progress at its current, rapid pace, electronics based on organic thin-film materials will soon become a mainstay of our technological existence. Already products based on active thin-film organic devices are in the market place, most notably the displays of several mobile electronic appliances. Yet the future holds even greater promise for this technology, with an entirely new generation of ultralow-cost, lightweight and even flexible electronic devices in the offing, which will perform functions traditionally accomplished using much more expensive components based on conventional semiconductor materials such as silicon.     

Nanotechnology: high-speed integrated nanowire circuits

Macroelectronic circuits made on substrates of glass or plastic could one day make computing devices ubiquitous owing to their light weight, flexibility and low cost. But these substrates deform at high temperatures so, until now, only semiconductors such as organics and amorphous silicon could be used, leading to poor performance. Here we present the use of low-temperature processes to integrate high-performance multi-nanowire transistors into logical inverters and fast ring oscillators on glass substrates. As well as potentially enabling powerful electronics to permeate all aspects of modern life, this advance could find application in devices such as low-cost radio-frequency tags and fully integrated high-refresh-rate displays.     

2017年有机功能材料研发热点回眸

 从高效柔性有机半导体器件、高效有机太阳能电池、高效有机白光二极管、有机光伏器件的磁效应、有机自旋光伏器件设计等5个方面，盘点了2017年有机功能材料领域的重要研究进展；从有机电子学、有机光电子学和有机自旋电子学等多个角度，回顾了有机功能材料新奇的物理现象及原理；预测了该领域未来的发展方向。     

Academic and industry research progress in germanium nanodevices

Silicon has enabled the rise of the semiconductor electronics industry, but it was not the first material used in such devices. During the 1950s, just after the birth of the transistor, solid-state devices were almost exclusively manufactured from germanium. Today, one of the key ways to improve transistor performance is to increase charge-carrier mobility within the device channel. Motivated by this, the solid-state device research community is returning to investigating the high-mobility material germanium. Germanium-based transistors have the potential to operate at high speeds with low power requirements and might therefore be used in non-silicon-based semiconductor technology in the future.     

Growth of nanowire superlattice structures for nanoscale photonics and electronics

The assembly of semiconductor nanowires and carbon nanotubes into nanoscale devices and circuits could enable diverse applications in nanoelectronics and photonics. Individual semiconducting nanowires have already been configured as field-effect transistors, photodetectors and bio/chemical sensors. More sophisticated light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and complementary and diode logic devices have been realized using both n- and p-type semiconducting nanowires or nanotubes. The n- and p-type materials have been incorporated in these latter devices either by crossing p- and n-type nanowires or by lithographically defining distinct p- and n-type regions in nanotubes, although both strategies limit device complexity. In the planar semiconductor industry, intricate n- and p-type and more generally compositionally modulated (that is, superlattice) structures are used to enable versatile electronic and photonic functions. Here we demonstrate the synthesis of semiconductor nanowire superlattices from group III-V and group IV materials. (The superlattices are created within the nanowires by repeated modulation of the vapour-phase semiconductor reactants during growth of the wires.) Compositionally modulated superlattices consisting of 2 to 21 layers of GaAs and GaP have been prepared. Furthermore, n-Si/p-Si and n-InP/p-InP modulation doped nanowires have been synthesized. Single-nanowire photoluminescence, electrical transport and electroluminescence measurements show the unique photonic and electronic properties of these nanowire superlattices, and suggest potential applications ranging from nano-barcodes to polarized nanoscale LEDs.     

Optical gain in silicon nanocrystals

Adding optical functionality to a silicon microelectronic chip is one of the most challenging problems of materials research. Silicon is an indirect-bandgap semiconductor and so is an inefficient emitter of light. For this reason, integration of optically functional elements with silicon microelectronic circuitry has largely been achieved through the use of direct-bandgap compound semiconductors. For optoelectronic applications, the key device is the light source--a laser. Compound semiconductor lasers exploit low-dimensional electronic systems, such as quantum wells and quantum dots, as the active optical amplifying medium. Here we demonstrate that light amplification is possible using silicon itself, in the form of quantum dots dispersed in a silicon dioxide matrix. Net optical gain is seen in both waveguide and transmission configurations, with the material gain being of the same order as that of direct-bandgap quantum dots. We explain the observations using a model based on population inversion of radiative states associated with the Si/SiO2 interface. These findings open a route to the fabrication of a silicon laser.