Advances in short-wavelength mid-infrared silicon photonics (Invited)

Short-wavelength mid-infrared (mid-IR) (2-2.5 μm wavelengths) photonics has tremendous applications in optical communication, ranging, satellite remote sensing, disease diagnosis, and military defense. As key components of short-wavelength mid-IR optical systems, integrated optoelectronic devices have attracted great attention in the past decades. With the merit of the wide transparency window of silicon material, silicon photonic integrated circuits exhibit great potential in developing short-wavelength mid-IR optoelectronic devices. In this review paper, we briefly discuss potential applications of short-wavelength mid-IR silicon photonics, and review its history and frontier progress from three aspects, namely, passive waveguide devices, nonlinear optics waveguide devices, and optoelectronic waveguide devices.