ABSTRACT
Silicon photonics is on the verge of entering the mass market from a niche one. Optimistic assessments of the market forecast a large annual growth rate up to a volume of around 0.5 billion US dollars at the chip level and almost 4 billion US dollars at the transceiver level in 2025. Silicon photonics delivers key components to aeronautics/aerospace, sensors, autonomous traffic, and high-performance computing. The status of laser development is explained on the well-documented example of a uniaxially strained Ge microbridge that is in stiction with the underlying oxide layer. The close contact improves the thermal resistance, which is the thermal bottleneck in suspended microbridges. The low-dimensional structure may be designed by means of lithography, as in the given example, which is a technologically advanced method. A less spectacular but essential challenge is given by the need for integration of different photonic devices and for the integration of photonic integrated circuits with conventional microelectronic circuits.
