Microring Resonators Based Applications in Silicon Photonics - A Review

Silicon photonics is emerging as leading technology for development of photonic integrated circuits (PIC) which finds number of applications in various fields. Since CMOS fabrication process can be used to manufacture photonic integrated circuits, large scale integration and high volume production of PIC are possible at low cost. Due to various optical and material characteristics of crystalline silicon, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) is now widely used platform for silicon photonics. In this paper, we review the silicon micro-ring resonators with it's promising application in field of medical, communication and quantum electronics. We begin with the theory of silicon micro-ring resonators which is required to understand the basic principle of ring-resonators. Further, micro-ring resonators based applications such as label-free biosensors, modulators, filters, switches and application in quantum photonics is reviewed.