This thesis presents the theory design and fabrication of a diffractive grating coupler. The first part of the design process is to choose the period of the grating coupler based on the desired coupling angle. The second part of the design process is to choose the geometry of the grating that gives maximum coupling efficiency based on rigorous analyses. The diffraction gratings are fabricated by recording the interference between two waves in photoresist. The waveguide is fabricated from silicon nitride that is deposited by chemical vapor deposition. The diffraction grating recording assembly is described along with the grating coupler fabrication process. A grating coupler is fabricated with an input coupling efficiency of 15% at a coupling angle of 22.9°. The results also show that the light is being coupled into the nitride waveguide indirectly. The light is coupled first into a photoresist slab and then into the nitride waveguide through modal coupling and scattering. An analysis of the structure explains the coupling, and rigorous analyses are given to show that the measured results are in accordance with theory.

In this thesis by articles, I propose and demonstrate the full design, fabrication and characterization of optical biosensors based on (Bloch) Long Range Surface Plasmon Polaritons (LRSPPs). Gold waveguides embedded in CYTOP with an etched microfluidic channel supporting LRSPPs and gold waveguides on a one-dimensional photonic crystal (1DPC) supporting Bloch LRSPPs are exploited for biosensing applications. Straight gold waveguides embedded in CYTOP supporting LRSPPs as a biosensor, are initially used to measure the kinetics constants of protein-protein interactions. The kinetics constants are extracted from binding curves using the integrated rate equation. Linear and non-linear least squares analysis are employed to obtain the kinetics constants and the results are compared. The device is also used to demonstrate enhanced assay formats (sandwich and inhibition assays) and protein concentrations as low as 10 pg/ml in solution are detected with a signal-to-noise ratio of 20 using this new optical biosensor technology. CYTOP which has a refractive index close to water is the fluoropolymer of choice in current state of the art waveguide biosensors. CYTOP has a low glass transition temperature which introduces limitations in fabrication processes. A truncated 1D photonic crystal can replace a low-index polymer cladding such as CYTOP, to support Bloch LRSPPs within the bandgap of the 1DPC over a limited ranges of wavenumber and wavelength. Motivated by quality issues with end facets, we seek to use grating couplers in a broadside coupling scheme where a laser beam emerging from an optical fiber excites Bloch LRSPPs on a Au stripe on a truncated 1D photonic crystal. Adiabatic and non-adiabatic flared stripes accommodating wide gratings size-matched to an incident Gaussian beam are designed and compared to maximise the coupling efficiency to LRSPPs. The gratings are optimized, initially, through 2D modelling using the vectorial finite element method (FEM). Different 3D grating designs were then investigated via 3D modelling using the vectorial finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. Given their compatibility with planar technologies, gratings and waveguides can be integrated into arrays of biosensors enabling multi-channel biosensing. A multi-channel platform can provide, e.g., additional measurements to improve the reliability in a disease detection problem. Thus, a novel optical biosensor based on Bloch LRSPPs on waveguide arrays integrated with electrochemical biosensors is presented. The structures were fabricated on truncated 1D photonic crystals comprised of 15 period stack of alternating layers of SiO2/Ta2O5. The optical biosensors consist of Au stripes supporting Bloch LRSPPs and integrate grating couplers as input/output means. The Au stripes also operate as a working electrode in conjunction with a neighboring Pt counter electrode to form an electrochemical sensor. The structures were fabricated using bilayer lift-off photolithography and the gratings were fabricated using overlaid e-beam lithography. The planar waveguides are integrated into arrays capable of multichannel biosensing. The wafer is covered with CYTOP as the upper cladding with etched microfluidic channels, and wafer-bonded to a borofloat silica wafer to seal the fluidic channels and enable side fluidic interfaces. The proposed device is capable in principle of simultaneous optical and electrochemical sensing and could be used to address disease detection problems using a multimodal strategy.

Im Bereich der medizinischen Diagnostik spielen DNA-Chips eine immer wichtigere Rolle. Dabei werden Glas- oder Silikon-Oberflächen mit Tausenden von einzelsträngigen DNA-Fragmenten, sog. Sonden, bestückt, die mit den passenden DNA-Fragmenten in der zugefügten Patientenprobe verschmelzen. Die Auswertung solcher Messungen liefert die Diagnose für Krankheiten wie z.B. Krebs, Alzheimer oder für den Nachweis pathogener Erreger. Durch fortschreitende Miniaturisierung dieser Meßsysteme können bis zu 40.000 Genfragmente des Menschen in einer einzigen Messung analysiert werden. Neben den DNA-Fragmenten können Bio-Chips auch für andere biologische Komponenten wie Antikörper und Proteine eingesetzt werden, wobei bei letzteren neben der Bindung auch die Aktivität ein wichtiger Diagnoseparamter ist. <br /> <br /> Am Fraunhofer-Institut für medizinische Technik und am Lehrstuhl für Analytische Biochemie der Universität Potsdam wurden im Rahmen einer Doktorarbeit Methoden entwickelt, die es ermöglichen auf nukleinsäuremodifizierten Sensoroberflächen die Aktivität von Proteinen zu messen. Es wurden Nukleinsäuren auf Oberflächen optischer Sensoren verankert. Diese fungierten als Rezeptor für die Proteine sowie auch als Substrat für Restriktionsenzyme, die Nukleinsäuren schneiden und Polymerasen, die Nukleinsäuren synthetisieren und verlängern können.<br /> <br /> Seine Anwendung fand diese Messmethode in der Messung der Aktivität des Proteins Telomerase, das in 90% aller Tumore erhöhte Aktivität gegenüber gesunden Zellen aufweist. Die Vorteile dieses neuen Assays gegenüber älteren Methoden liegt im Verzicht auf radioaktiv-markierten Komponenten und einer deutlich verkürzten Analysezeit. Die Arbeit schliesst mit einem funktionsfähigen Nachweis der Telomeraseaktivität im Zellextrakt von gesunden und kranken Zellen. Der direkte Einfluß von Hemmstoffen auf die Aktivität konnte sichtbar gemacht werden, und steht daher bei der Entwicklung neuer Tumor-Diagnostika und Therapeutika zur Verfügung. / In the field of medical diagnostic the importance of DNA chips is growing continuously. On silica surfaces hundreds of single stranded DNA fragments are immobilised which finally detect the complementary sequences in samples of patients by hybridisation. These methods enable the detection of serious diseases as cancer, Alzheimer's disease or infection by pathogens. Biomolecules as nucleic acids, antibodies and proteins can be used as receptors on the solid surfaces whereas in case of proteins not only the binding but also the activity are of high interest for medical diagnosis.<br /> <br /> In this thesis a biosensoric approach has been developed to determine the activity of nucleic-acid modifying enzymes. Optical sensors as, e.g., the grating coupler, were used to monitor the association and dissociation of unlabeled compounds on the sensor surface in real time, by virtue of evanescent-field. Furthermore sensors based on total internal reflection fluorescence measured the activity of restriction enzymes and polymerases. The general approach included the immobilisation of oligonucleotides which acted as the receptor for the enzymes as well as the substrate for the enzymatic reaction. Enzymes as EcoRI and Klenow were used to establish a model system to measure the activity of DNA-modifying enzymes on optical surfaces. As most nucleic acid detection systems use amplification steps such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to increase the amount of the probe the new optical systems facilitated the analysis of the enzymatic activity by measuring the DNA-synthesis or restriction directly.<br /> <br /> These systems were finally used to detect the activity of the telomerase, an enzymatic marker for the cancerous development of cells. In 90% of cancer cells the activity of telomerase is higher than in normal cells. Additionally the increase of the telomerase activity in cells induced by carcinogenic substances was detected. Furthermore no purification steps of the samples were required as all measurements were performed with crude cell extract.<br /> <br /> Also the effect of inhibitors of the telomerase could be shown in real time measurements underlining the potential of this assay for further developments of new cancer therapeutics.

Aujourd’hui, les puces et capteurs provenant de la microélectronique ne sont plus simplement des circuits électroniques mais peuvent désormais véhiculer des signaux électriques et optiques. En témoignent les puces dites photoniques, utilisées pour la transmission de données à très haut débit. Cependant, cette technologie exploite une part très restreinte du spectre de la lumière, située dans le proche infrarouge. L’exploitation de l’ensemble du moyen infrarouge (λ=2-20 µm) permettrait la mise au point de nouveaux capteurs intégrés se servant des empreintes spectrales spécifiques des molécules dans cette partie du spectre électromagnétique.L’objet de cette thèse est de développer des circuits optiques intégrés sur silicium capables de véhiculer ces longueurs d’onde et qui soient compatibles avec des procédés de fabrication en salle blanche 200 mm. La technologie développée dans ces travaux est basée sur des guides carrés à saut d’indice en Si₀,₆Ge₀,₄ enterrés dans le Si, afin d’obtenir des circuits compactes et à faibles pertes. La conception des fonctions optiques nécessaires à la construction des circuits est tout d’abord présentée. Ces fonctions sont ensuite assemblées pour former un circuit optique qui sera fabriqué puis caractérisé afin de valider les performances de la technologie développée. Deux circuits ont ainsi été fabriqués : un premier a été réalisé avec un procédé standard tandis que le deuxième a été fabriqué avec un procédé de type damascène. La première réalisation offre l’avantage d’utiliser des procédés connus, tandis que la deuxième permet de fabriquer des guides pour différentes longueurs d’onde sur une même puce. Ces deux circuits ont été caractérisés afin de mener une étude comparative entre les deux procédés de fabrication. Enfin, dans un soucis de monter en maturité de la plateforme, une étude approfondie des réseaux de couplage sur des guides Si₀,₆Ge₀,₄ a été conduite. Celle-ci a donnée lieu à la fabrication et à la caractérisation de deux réseaux : un constitué d’inclusions d’air et un deuxième localement suspendu. / Nowadays, microelectronic chips and sensors are not simply electronic circuits anymore. They are able to convey both electric and optical signal. As shown by the so-called photonic chips used to transmit data at high speed rate. However, this technology only exploits a very small part of the light spectrum, namely in the near infrared. Exploitation of the whole mid-infrared domain (λ=2-20 µm) would allow to develop new integrated sensors using molecules specific spectral fingerprints in this part of the electromagnetic spectrum.This thesis deals with the development of integrated optical circuits on silicon capable of handling these wavelengths and compatible with 200 mm clean room fabrication processes. The technology developed in this work, is based on Si₀,₆Ge₀,₄ channel square waveguides in order to obtain compact and low loss optical circuits. First of all, the design of optical functions required to build circuits is presented. Then, these functions are assembled into circuits which are manufactured and characterized in order to assess performances of the developed technology. Two circuits have been produced: one with standard processes and one with damascene processes. The first one has the advantage of using known processes, whereas the second one allows to make waveguides for different wavelengths on a single chip. These two circuits have been characterized in order to conduct a comparative study between the two fabrication processes. Finally, in order to mature the technology, an in-depth study on grating coupler for Si₀,₆Ge₀,₄ waveguides have been conducted. It has led to the manufacturing and characterization of two grating couplers : one made of air inclusions and another locally suspended.

This thesis treats the development of packaging and integration methods for the cost-efficient encapsulation and packaging of microelectromechanical (MEMS) devices. The packaging of MEMS devices is often more costly than the device itself, partly because the packaging can be crucial for the performance of the device. For devices which contain liquids or needs to be enclosed in a vacuum, the packaging can account for up to 80% of the total cost of the device. The first part of this thesis presents the integration scheme for an optical dye thin film NO2-gas sensor, designed using cost-efficient implementations of wafer-scale methods. This work includes design and fabrication of photonic subcomponents in addition to the main effort of integration and packaging of the dye-film. A specific proof of concept target was for NO2 monitoring in a car tunnel. The second part of this thesis deals with the wafer-scale packaging methods developed for the sensing device. The developed packaging method, based on low-temperature plastic deformation of gold sealing structures, is further demonstrated as a generic method for other hermetic liquid and vacuum packaging applications. In the developed packaging methods, the mechanically squeezed gold sealing material is both electroplated microstruc- tures and wire bonded stud bumps. The electroplated rings act like a more hermetic version of rubber sealing rings while compressed in conjunction with a cavity forming wafer bonding process. The stud bump sealing processes is on the other hand applied on completed cavities with narrow access ports, to seal either a vacuum or liquid inside the cavities at room temperature. Additionally, the resulting hermeticity of primarily the vacuum sealing methods is thoroughly investigated. Two of the sealing methods presented require permanent mechanical fixation in order to complete the packaging process. Two solutions to this problem are presented in this thesis. First, a more traditional wafer bonding method using tin-soldering is demonstrated. Second, a novel full-wafer epoxy underfill-process using a microfluidic distribution network is demonstrated using a room temperature process. / <p>QC 20130325</p>

Large on-chip bandwidths required for high performance electronic chips will render optical components essential parts of future on-chip interconnects. Silicon photonics enables highly integrated photonic integrated circuit (PIC) using CMOS compatible process. In order to maximize the bandwidth density and design flexibility of PICs, vertical integration of electronic layers and photonics layers is strongly preferred. Comparing deposited silicon, single crystalline silicon offers low material absorption loss and high carrier mobility, which are ideal for multi-layer silicon PIC. Three different methods to build multi-layer silicon PICs based on single crystalline silicon are demonstrated in this dissertation, including double-bonded silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers, transfer printed silicon nanomembranes, and adhesively bonded silicon nanomembranes. 1-to-12 waveguide fanouts using multimode interference (MMI) couplers were designed, fabricated and characterized on both double-bonded SOI and transfer printed silicon nanomembrane, and the results show comparable performance to similar devices fabricated on SOI. However, both of these two methods have their limitations in optical interconnects applications. Large and defect-free silicon nanomembrane fabricated using adhesive bonding is identified as a promising solution to build multi-layer silicon PICs. A double-layer structure constituted of vertically integrated silicon nanomembranes was demonstrated. Subwavelength length based fiber-to-chip grating couplers were used to couple light into this new platform. Three basic building blocks of silicon photonics were designed, fabricated and characterized, including 1) inter-layer grating coupler based on subwavelength nanostructure, which has efficiency of 6.0 dB and 3 dB bandwidth of 41 nm, for light coupling between layers, 2) 1-to-32 H-tree optical distribution, which has excess loss of 2.2 dB, output uniformity of 0.72 dB and 3 dB bandwidth of 880 GHz, 3) waveguide crossing utilizing index-engineered MMI coupler, which has crossing loss of 0.019 dB, cross talk lower than -40 dB and wide transmission spectrum covering C-band and L-band. The demonstrated integration method and silicon photonic devices can be integrated into the CMOS back-end process for clock distribution and global signaling. / text

Ces dernières années, la photonique sur silicium est apparue comme une solution prometteuse pour la fabrication en grande série d'émetteurs-récepteurs optiques répondant aux besoins des centres de données en termes d'augmentation du débit et de coûts réduits. Plusieurs plateformes de photonique sur silicium ont été démontrées en utilisant la technologie Si standard. Bien que ces plateformes diffèrent à bien des égards, elles manquent toutes d'une source de lumière intégrée monolithiquement. Pour résoudre ce problème, l'approche la plus couramment proposée consiste à coller un empilement InP sur une plaque SOI afin de fabriquer un laser hybride III-V/Si. Cependant, aucune des démonstrations n'a été réalisée avec un empilement d’interconnexions métalliques BEOL (Back-End Of Line) standard, empêchant ainsi une intégration électronique-photonique appropriée. Pour résoudre le problème topographique posé par cet ajout de couches, un nouveau schéma d'intégration, appelé intégration Back-Side, a été développé et est présenté dans ce document.Tout d'abord, le contexte de cette étude, un état de l’art ainsi que la présentation du Back-Side est abordé. La nouveauté apportée par cette intégration, à savoir le collage du III-V sur la face arrière du SOI après la structuration de celui-ci, y est alors détaillé.Le bon fonctionnement d’un élément essentiel à la puce photonique, le réseau de couplage, est ensuite abordé à travers des simulations, sa fabrication et des caractérisations optiques. Nous avons prouvé que, sous certaines conditions, ce dispositif possède les mêmes performances mesurées en Back-Side qu’en Front-Side.Le principe de fonctionnement d’une cavité oscillante puis les différents modules composants le laser hybride sont détaillés. Le laser étudié est une cavité hybride DBR (Distributed Bragg Reflector) III-V/Si. Afin d'augmenter le confinement du mode dans le MQWs (Multi Quantum Wells) et donc d'assurer un gain optique élevé, le mode optique est progressivement transféré entre le guide III-V et le guide silicium du laser hybride par des épanouisseurs adiabatiques, structurés dans le SOI de part et d’autre de la zone de gain, pour être enfin réfléchi par les miroirs DBR dans le silicium.Enfin, son processus de fabrication est explicité avant que ses caractérisations opto-électroniques ne soient finalement présentées. Les lasers à pompage électrique ont été testés dans des conditions de courant continu et la lumière générée a été collectée à travers un réseau de couplage par une fibre optique externe multimode. Les pertes de couplage ont été mesurées supérieures à 10 dB. La puissance de sortie est de 1,15 mW à un courant d'injection de 200 mA. Le seuil laser est de 45 mA, ce qui correspond à une densité de courant de 1,5 kA / cm2 et la résistance série des contacts laser est d'environ 9 Ω. La tension de seuil est de 1,45 V. Les spectres lasers reflètent un fonctionnement mono-fréquence, pour différents courants d'injection, avec une longueur d'onde centrale correspondant à la longueur d’onde de Bragg des miroirs. Un SMSR (Side Mode Suppression Ratio) de plus de 35 dB a été mesuré, ce qui prouve la bonne pureté spectrale de ce laser. Un décalage de la longueur d'onde de 4 nm a été observé en injectant un courant de 20 mA dans des chaufferettes métalliques au-dessus des DBRs.L'intégration monolithique d'un laser DBR hybride en face arrière d'une plaque SOI, entièrement compatible CMOS, a été démontrée pour la première fois, la mise en place d'interconnexions électriques compatibles CMOS et de sources optiques sur une même puce a pu être réalisée. Ce dispositif ouvre la voie à un émetteur-récepteur optique entièrement intégré sur une plateforme Si. / Recently, Silicon Photonics has emerged as a solution for the mass manufacturing of optical transceivers addressing datacenter’s needs in terms of increasing data-rate and reduced cost. Several Silicon-Photonics platforms have been demonstrated using standard Si technology. While these platforms differ in many regards, they all lack a solution for a monolithically integrated light source. To solve this problem, the most commonly proposed approach consists in bonding an InP-stack onto a Si-wafer in order to fabricate a Hybrid III-V/Si laser. However, none of those demonstrations have been made with a standard CMOS-BEOL, preventing a proper electronic-photonic integration. To solve the topographical problem induced by the additional layers, a new integration scheme, called Back-Side, has been developed and is presented in this document.First, the context of this study, a state of the art as well as the presentation of the Back-Side is discussed. The innovation brought by this integration, namely the bonding of the III-V on the back side of the SOI after the structuring of the latter, is then detailed.The correct behavior of a key element to the photonic chip, the grating coupler, is then treated through simulations, fabrication and optical characterizations. We have proved that, under specific conditions, this device has the same measured performances in Back-Side and in Front-Side.The principle of an optical oscillator and then the various modules composing the hybrid laser are then detailed. The implemented laser is based on a hybrid DBR (Distributed Bragg Reflector) III-V/Si cavity. In order to increase the mode confinement in the MQWS (Multi Quantum Wells) and hence ensure a high optical gain, the optical mode is gradually transferred between the III-V waveguide and the silicon waveguide of the hybrid laser by adiabatic tapers, patterned on both sides of the gain zone, to finally be reflected by the mirrors DBR in the silicon.Finally, its manufacturing process is explained before its opto-electronic characterizations are presented. The electrically pumped lasers have been tested under continuous-wave current conditions and the generated light has been collected through the grating coupler to a multi-mode fiber. The fiber coupling losses has been measured to be higher than 10 dB. The output power is up to 1.15 mW at an injection current of 200 mA. The lasing threshold is 45 mA which corresponds to a current density of 1.5 kA/cm2 and the series resistance of the laser contacts is approximately 9 . The threshold voltage is 1.45 V.The laser spectra reflect its single-wavelength laser operation, for different injection currents, with a central wavelength corresponding to the Bragg wavelength of the mirrors. A Side Mode Suppression Ratio (SMSR) of more than 35 dB has been measured. A 4 nm wavelength shift has been observed when injecting 20 mA into both metallic heaters above DBRs.The monolithic integration of a fully CMOS compatible hybrid DBR laser on the backside of a SOI wafer being demonstrated for the first time, implementing CMOS compatible electric interconnects and optical sources on a same chip has could be achieved. This device opens the route to a fully integrated optical transceiver on a Si platform.

An array of grating couplers is studied to be used for beam steering in a wireless optical communication system. This structure is designed using a rib waveguide with a silicon thickness of 220nm and an etch depth of 70nm using 2μm silica substrate. TE polarized input light with wavelength of 1550nm is coupled into the feed waveguide. The structure is optimized based on the angular coverage, directed power, and beam efficiency of the radiated main beam of an individual grating coupler. The main beam radiated by optimized grating coupler has a beamwidth of 10.3°×30.7°. The designed 1-D array of the fifteen grating couplers provides tunability in the range of around 30 degrees which is required for a point to pint wireless optical communication transmitter.

Nowadays, silicon photonics is a widely studied research topic. Its high-index-contrast and compatibility with the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology make it a promising platform for low cost high density integration. Several general problems have been brought up, including the lack of silicon active devices, the difficulty of light coupling, the polarization dependence, etc. This thesis aims to give new attempts to novel solutions for some of these problems. Both theoretical modeling and experimental work have been done. Several numerical methods are reviewed first. The semi-vectorial finite-difference mode solver in cylindrical coordinate system is developed and it is mainly used for calculating the eigenmodes of the waveguide structures employed in this thesis. The finite-difference time-domain method and beam propagation method are also used to analyze the light propagation in complex structures. The fabrication and characterization technologies are studied. The fabrication is mainly based on clean room facilities, including plasma assisted film deposition, electron beam lithography and dry etching. The vertical coupling system is mainly used for characterization in this thesis. Compared with conventional butt-coupling system, it can provide much higher coupling efficiency and larger alignment tolerance. Two novel couplers related to silicon photonic wires are studied. In order to improve the coupling efficiency of a grating coupler, a nonuniform grating is theoretically designed to maximize the overlap between the radiated light profile and the optical fiber mode. Over 60% coupling efficiency is obtained experimentally. Another coupler facilitating the light coupling between silicon photonic wires and slot waveguides is demonstrated, both theoretically and experimentally. Almost lossless coupling is achieved in experiments. Two approaches are studied to realize polarization insensitive devices based on silicon photonic wires. The first one is the use of a sandwich waveguide structure to eliminate the polarization dependent wavelength of a microring resonator. By optimizing the multilayer structure, we successfully eliminate the large birefringence in an ultrasmall ring resonator. Another approach is to use polarization diversity scheme. Two key components of the scheme are studied. An efficient polarization beam splitter based on a one-dimensional grating coupler is theoretically designed and experimentally demonstrated. This polarization beam splitter can also serve as an efficient light coupler between silicon-on-insulator waveguides and optical fibers. Over 50% coupling efficiency for both polarizations and -20dB extinction ratio between them are experimentally obtained. A compact polarization rotator based on silicon photonic wire is theoretically analyzed. 100% polarization conversion is achievable and the fabrication tolerance is relatively large by using a compensation method. A novel integration platform based on nano-epitaxial lateral overgrowth technology is investigated to realize monolithic integration of III-V materials on silicon. A silica mask is used to block the threading dislocations from the InP seed layer on silicon. Technologies such as hydride vapor phase epitaxy and chemical-mechanical polishing are developed. A thin dislocation free InP layer on silicon is obtained experimentally. / QC20100705

Decades of efforts have pushed the replacement of electrical interconnects by optical links to the interconnects between computers, racks and circuit boards. It may be expected that optical solutions will further be used for inter-chip and intra-chip interconnects with potential benefits in bandwidth, capacity, delay, power consumption and crosstalk. Silicon integration is emerging to be the best candidate nowadays due to not only the dominant status of silicon in microelectronics but also the great advantages brought to the photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Regarding the recent breakthroughs concerning active devices on silicon substrate, the question left is no longer the feasibility of the optical interconnects based on silicon but the competitiveness of the silicon device compared with other alternatives. This thesis focuses on the study of two key components for the optical interconnects, both especially designed and fabricated for silicon platform. One is a high speed electroabsorption modulator (EAM), realized by transferring an InP-based segmented design to the hybrid silicon evanescent platform. The purpose here is to increase the speed of the silicon PICs to over 50  Gb/s or more. The other one is a high performance grating coupler, with the purpose to improve the optical interface between the silicon PICs and the outside fiber-based communication system. An general approach based on the transmission line analysis has been developed to evaluate the modulation response of an EAM with a lumped, traveling-wave, segmented or capacitively-loaded configuration. A genetic algorithm is used to optimize its configuration. This method has been applied to the design of the EAMs on hybrid silicon evanescent platform. Based on the comparison of various electrode design, segmented configuration is adopted for the target of a bandwidth over 40 GHz with as low as possible voltage and high extinction ratio. In addition to the common periodic analysis, the grating coupler is analyzed by the antenna theory assisted with an improved volume-current method, where the directionality of a grating coupler can be obtained analytically. In order to improve the performance of the grating coupler, a direct way is to address its shortcoming by e.g. increasing the coupling efficiency. For this reason, a nonuniform grating coupler with apodized grooves has been developed with a coupling efficiency of 64%, nearly a double of a standard one. Another way is to add more functionalities to the grating coupler. To do this, a polarization beam splitter (PBS) based on a bidirectional grating coupler has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. An extinction ratio of around -20 dB, as well as a maximum coupling efficiency of over 50% for both polarizations, is achieved by such a PBS with a Bragg reflector underneath. / QC 20100906