Graphene Thermal Infrared Emitters Integrated into Silicon Photonic Waveguides

Cost-efficient and easily integrable broadband mid-infrared (mid-IR) sources would significantly enhance the application space of photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Thermal incandescent sources are superior to other common mid-IR emitters based on semiconductor materials in terms of PIC compatibility, manufacturing costs, and bandwidth. Ideal thermal emitters would radiate directly into the desired modes of the PIC waveguides via near-field coupling and would be stable at very high temperatures. Graphene is a semimetallic two-dimensional material with comparable emissivity to thin metallic thermal emitters. It allows maximum coupling into waveguides by placing it directly into their evanescent fields. Here, we demonstrate graphene mid-IR emitters integrated with photonic waveguides that couple directly into the fundamental mode of silicon waveguides designed to work in the so-called "fingerprint region" relevant for gas sensing. High broadband emission intensity is observed at the waveguide-integrated graphene emitter. The emission at the output grating couplers confirms successful coupling into the waveguide mode. Thermal simulations predict emitter temperatures up to 1000 °C, where the blackbody radiation covers the mid-IR region. A coupling efficiency η, defined as the light emitted into the waveguide divided by the total emission, of up to 68% is estimated, superior to data published for other waveguide-integrated emitters.