Fluidic assisted thin-film device heterogeneous integration: Surface tension as driving force and magnetic as guiding force

This paper demonstrates a fluidic assisted heterogeneous integration of optical thin-film device using surface tension as driving force and magnetic field as guiding force. Thin-film devices can be auto-aligned and integrated using surface tension onto their predesigned locations on a host substrate due to minimization of interfacial energy. By inserting a layer of nickel (Ni) into device metallization step, magnetic force was employed to increase mobility and contact probability of thin-film devices to their binding sites on the host substrate. A thin-film gallium arsenide (GaAs) inverted Metal-Semiconductor-Metal (MSM) photodetector (PD) has been successfully integrated onto a silicon host substrate with the proposed integration approach. The influence of the nickel layer to the PD performance was also investigated. Due to the self-assembly capability and thin-film format of the device, the proposed method has potential for wafer-scale implementation and is compatible with the matured silicon-based CMOS technology. This is a critical step towards a scalable manufacturing process to create advanced photonic/optoelectronic systems that are low-cost, compact, high performance, and complex in multi-material functionality.