Data Communication Using Blue GaN-on-Si Micro-LEDs Reported on a 200-mm Silicon Substrate

• Published in: IEEE photonics technology letters Vol. 36; no. 18; pp. 1149 - 1152
• Main Authors: El Badaoui, Sultan, Maret, Luc, Delaunay, Nicolas, Cibie, Anthony, Le Maitre, Patrick, Ballot, Clement, Simon, Julia, Miralles, Bastien, Aventurier, Bernard, De Martino, Paolo, Jacob, Stephanie, Le Guennec, Yannis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 15-09-2024; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE); Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Bandwidth; Chip-to-chip communication; Circuit design; Data communication; Data transmission; DCO-OFDM; Direct current; Engineering Sciences; Gallium nitrides; GaN micro-LED; Integrated circuits; Light emitting diodes; Linearity; Modulation; OFDM; optical communication; Optical modulation; Optical receivers; Optics; Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing; Photonic; Signal and Image processing; Silicon; Silicon substrates; Transmitters; Optical communication; Chip-to-chip communication; DCO-OFDM; GaN micro-LED
• ISSN: 1041-1135; 1941-0174
• DOI: 10.1109/LPT.2024.3451244

In this letter, Gallium Nitride (GaN) blue micro-Light-Emitting-Diodes (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu </tex-math></inline-formula>LEDs) reported on a 200-mm Silicon substrate are utilized for multi-Gb/s data transmission. The manufacturing process is compatible with CMOS integrated circuit design, paving the way for fully integrated transmitters for <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu </tex-math></inline-formula>LED-based visible light communications (VLC) or chip-to-chip interconnects. Fiber-guided transmission has been realized using direct current optical-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DCO-OFDM) modulation, and a data rate of 5.9 Gb/s at a Bit-Error-Rate (BER) of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">3.8\times 10 ^{-3} </tex-math></inline-formula> is reported using a single <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">50 \times 50~\mu </tex-math></inline-formula> m2 blue <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu </tex-math></inline-formula>LED. This data rate was further improved to reach 15.5 Gb/s in the case where the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu </tex-math></inline-formula>LED is only limited by its non-linear distortions instead of the system's noise, highlighting the high linearity of GaN <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu </tex-math></inline-formula>LEDs.