A Method to Fabricate Chip-Scale Electronic Photonic (Plasmonic) - Integrated Circuits

Electronic photonic/plasmonic integrated circuit (EPIC} is the holy grail of both electronics and photonics communities because an EPIC takes advantage of high-speed optical communication and highly integrated fast electronics. EPICs have been regarded as next generation technology that can go beyond silicon and Moore's law. However, the realization of EPIC remains challenging even after decades of research effort. In this disclosure, we show in principle how such a new generation of integrated circuits can be fabricated. (1) Two dimensional monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) such as MoS2, WS2. WSe2 will be used as the base material on which transistors, optical detectors, optoelectronic modulators will be fabricated. (2) Metallic plasmonic waveguides will also be fabricated on the same TMD, surface plasmon will be utilized as a high-speed optical information carrier to communicate between transistors. As a proof of concept, we showed that light from MoS2 , and WS2 can be efficiently coupled to surface plasmon of the nanowire. The plasmon travels to another place of nanowire and is then absorbed and detected by the same MoS2 and WS2.

App TypeCase No.CountryPatent/Publication No.
InquireNational Phase2015058United States10,288,804