The drive toward miniature photonic devices has been hindered by our inability to tightly control and manipulate light. Moreover, photonics technologies are typically not based on silicon and, until recently, only indirectly benefited from the rapid advances being made in silicon processing technology. In the first part of this article, the successful fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) photonic crystals using silicon processing will be discussed. This advance has been made possible through the use of integrated-circuit (IC) fabrication technologies (e.g., very largescale integration, VLSI) and may enable the penetration of Si processing into photonics. In the second part, we describe the creation of 2D photonic-crystal slabs operating at the λ = 1.55 μm communications wavelength. This class of 2D photonic crystals is particularly promising for planar on-chip guiding, trapping, and switching of light.
An electron-multiplying ‘Micromegas’ grid made in silicon wafer post-processing technology