Silicon Photonic Crystals: Light emission, modulation and detection

Integration density, channel scalability, low switching energy and low insertion loss are the major prerequisites for on-chip WDM systems. A number of device geometries have already been demonstrated that fulfill these criteria, at least in part, but combining all of the requirements is still a difficult challenge. I will present our recent work on photonic crystal enhanced light sources, modulators and detectors for silicon photonics, that promise to give the ultimate in low energy and area consumption.