Silicon photonics: from a microresonator perspective

Silicon photonics leverages the optical, electrical and material properties of silicon and the mature complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) nanofabrication technique to develop on-chip photonic integration, which has been making significant impacts in various frontiers including next-generation optical communications networks, on-chip optical interconnects for high-speed energy-efficient computing and biosensing. Among many optical structures fabricated on silicon chips, microresonators due to their high-Q resonances and small footprints play important roles in various devices including lasers, filters, modulators, switches, routers, delays, detectors and sensors. This paper reviews from a microresonator perspective some of the latest progress in the field, summarizes design considerations in various applications and points out key challenges and potentials.