Defining capabilities of Si and InP photonics

Monolithic photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have a long history reaching back more than 40 years. During that time, and particularly in the past 15 years, the technology has matured and the application space grown to span sophisticated tunable diode lasers, 40 Gb/s electrical-to-optical signal converters with complex data formats, wavelength multiplexors and routers, as well as chemical/biological sensors. Most of this activity has centered in recent years on optical circuits built on either Silicon or InP substrates. This talk will review the three classes of PIC and highlight the unique strengths, and weaknesses, of PICs based on Silicon and InP substrates. Examples will be provided from recent R&D activity.