Silicon photonics is an emerging technology that has already been inserted into commercial communication products. The silicon is usually patterned with sub-micrometre precision, into microphotonic components. Where traditional computer chips push electrons through copper wires, silicon photonic chips guide photons (particles of light) through tiny channels called. Silicon photonics is an attractive technology for Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) because it builds directly on the extreme maturity of the silicon nano-electronics world. Thereby it opens a route towards very advanced PICs with very high yield and low cost. It enables optical communication on a silicon platform, bringing together the speed of light with the scalability of CMOS.
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