摘要:Serving as the electrical to optical converter,the on-chip silicon light source is an indispensable component of silicon photonic technologies and has long been pursued.Here,we briefly review the history and recent progress of a few promising contenders for on-chip light sources in terms of operating wavelength,pump condition,power consumption,and fabrication process.Additionally,the performance of each contender is also assessed with respect to thermal stability,which is a crucial parameter to consider in complex optoelectronic integrated circuits(OEICs)and optical interconnections.Currently,III-V-based silicon(Si)lasers formed via bonding techniques demonstrate the best performance and display the best opportunity for commercial usage in the near future.However,in the long term,direct hetero-epitaxial growth of III–V materials on Si seems more promising for low-cost,high-yield fabrication.The demonstration of high-performance quantum dot(QD)lasers monolithically grown on Si strongly forecasts its feasibility and enormous potential for on-chip lasers.The superior temperature-insensitive characteristics of the QD laser promote this design in large-scale high-density OEICs.The Germanium(Ge)-on-Si laser is also competitive for large-scale monolithic integration in the future.Compared with a III-V-based Si laser,the biggest potential advantage of a Ge-on-Si laser lies in its material and processing compatibility with Si technology.Additionally,the versatility of Ge facilitates photon emission,modulation,and detection simultaneously with a simple process complexity and low cost.