Room-Temperature Silicon Platform for GHz-Frequency Nanoelectro-Opto-Mechanical Systems

Nanoelectro-opto-mechanical systems enable the synergistic coexistence of electrical, mechanical, and optical signals on a chip to realize new functions. Most of the technology platforms proposed for the fabrication of these systems so far are not fully compatible with the mainstream CMOS technology, thus, hindering the mass-scale utilization. We have developed a CMOS technology platform for nanoelectro-opto-mechanical systems that includes piezoelectric interdigitated transducers for electronic driving of mechanical signals and nanocrystalline silicon nanobeams for an enhanced optomechanical interaction. Room-Temperature operation of devices at 2 GHz and with peak sensitivity down to 2.6 cavity phonons is demonstrated. Our proof-of-principle technology platform can be integrated and interfaced with silicon photonics, electronics, and MEMS devices and may enable multiple functions for coherent signal processing in the classical and quantum domains.
This research has received funding from the European Union H2020 FET Open Project PHENOMEN (No. 713450). The ICN2 authors acknowledge support by the Severo Ochoa program from Spanish MINECO (Grant No. SEV-2019-0706), the MCIN project SIP (PGC2018-101743-B-100), and by the CERCA Programme Generalitat de Catalunya. G.A. was supported by a BIST and MFC by a S. Ochoa Project Ph.D. studentships. G. M. acknowledges support from the EU ERC project LEIT (GA Nr. 885689). A.M. acknowledges support from MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ (Projects PGC2018-094490-BC21 and ICTS-2017-28-UPV-9), from Generalitat Valenciana (BEST/2020/178, PROMETEO/2019/123, and IDIFEDER/2021/061) and from “Unión Europea NextGenerationEU/PRTR”.