Abstract

In this tutorial, I will review the main approaches developed so far to engineer efficient light emission from silicon-based materials. I will discuss the physics of radiative recombination in silicon nanostructures embedded in different dielectric matrices and I will picture the state of the art for on-chip optical amplifiers and silicon laser devices. In addition, I will introduce novel device concepts based on a-periodic photonic/plasmonic structures for the control and manipulation of localized light states on silicon-based chips.

© 2009 Optical Society of America