Optimization of photonic crystal structure by FDTD method to improve the light extraction efficiency in silicon

Abstract

Silicon photonics technology is on its last hurdle to complete the system with active research on enhancing the light extraction efficiency of silicon. Silicon has a very poor radiative emission efficiency due to its indirect bandgap, thus making the probability of radiative recombination to be very low. The periodic quantum confinement structures such as photonic crystals (PhCs) can be tailored to increase the radiative recombination probability at the desired wavelengths. In this paper, we have optimized the silicon photonic crystal (Si PhCs) parameters to obtain luminescence at silicon bandgap and telecommunication wavelength using FDTD method. The extraction of photons is mostly conquered in the silicon structure that has lattice constant, a: 480 nm with radius, r: 140 nm and a: 500 nm with r: 160 nm. We have also observed the emissive photon luminescence that emerges in the most stable state of optical communication wavelength at 1310 nm.