Silicon Nanophotonics: Basics Principles, Present Status, and Perspectives

Silicon Photonics is an emerging field of research and technology; in such a scenario, nano-silicon can play a fundamental role. In this chapter the main building blocks constituting the Silicon Photonics (waveguides, modulators, sources and detectors) are reviewed and their counterpart of using Si nanocrystals is critically discussed showing. In particular, the non-linear effects of Si nanocrystals to get fast all-optical switches are presented as well as the recent research efforts on obtaining optical amplification at 1550 nm by using the sensitizing properties of Si nanocrystals to Er ions.