Integration of 2D materials on a silicon photonics platform for optoelectronics applications

Owing to enormous growth in both data storage and the demand for high-performance computing, there has been a major effort to integrate telecom networks on-chip. Silicon photonics is an ideal candidate, thanks to the maturity and economics of current CMOS processes in addition to the desirable optical properties of silicon in the near IR. The basics of optical communication require the ability to generate, modulate, and detect light, which is not currently possible with silicon alone. Growing germanium or III/V materials on silicon is technically challenging due to the mismatch between lattice constants and thermal properties. One proposed solution is to use two-dimensional materials, which have covalent bonds in-plane, but are held together by van der Waals forces out of plane. These materials have many unique electrical and optical properties and can be transferred to an arbitrary substrate without lattice matching requirements. This article reviews recent progress toward the integration of 2D materials on a silicon photonics platform for optoelectronic applications.