A sub-wavelength Si LED integrated in a CMOS platform.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36797286.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-36639-1 and PMC identifier 9935894.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
A nanoscale on-chip light source with high intensity is desired for various applications in integrated photonics systems. However, it is challenging to realize such an emitter using materials and fabrication processes compatible with the standard integrated circuit technology. In this letter, we report an electrically driven Si light-emitting diode with sub-wavelength emission area fabricated in an open-foundry microelectronics complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor platform. The light-emitting diode emission spectrum is centered around 1100 nm and the emission area is smaller than 0.14 μm<sup>2</sup> (~[Formula: see text] nm). This light-emitting diode has high spatial intensity of >50 mW/cm<sup>2</sup> which is comparable with state-of-the-art Si-based emitters with much larger emission areas. Due to sub-wavelength confinement, the emission exhibits a high degree of spatial coherence, which is demonstrated by incorporating the light-emitting diode into a compact lensless in-line holographic microscope. This centimeter-scale, all-silicon microscope utilizes a single emitter to simultaneously illuminate ~9.5 million pixels of a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor imager.