Nanocrystalline silicon as a new platform to widen the scope of silicon photonics

Integrated silicon photonics is nowadays a mature technology and it is considered one of the most likely solution to overcome crucial limits of electronics systems. In fact photonics will enables the realization of integrated devices with greater data transmission capacity, reduced power consumption and smaller latency. Among all the available alternatives silicon photonics has the fundamental advantage of being fully compatible with existing CMOS production lines, at both materials and processes level. Moreover this compatibility allows a smooth transition from electronic devices to optoelectronics, where basic optical and electronic functionalities are integrated into a single object, to all-optical systems.