In the past years, significant progress has been made on the realization of high performance building blocks in photonic circuits, such as ultra-low loss waveguides, monolithic lasers, high-speed modulators, and high efficiency photodetectors. However, toward large scale integration with complete functions and breakthrough performance, there are still many challenging problems to solve. While silicon has proved to be an asset material for integrated optics, the combination of other materials with complementary properties has turned out to be critical for the realization of specific advanced photonic devices. Yet, the major challenge has been the materials’ differences that cause difficulties in hybrid integration. APL Photonics’ keen interest in the field leads us to offer this editorial, which will present a broad overview of the recent progress, current challenges, and future opportunities of hybrid photonics integration.

中文翻译：

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硅以外的混合光子学

在过去的几年中，在光子电路中实现高性能构建块方面已经取得了重大进展，例如超低损耗波导，单片激光器，高速调制器和高效光电探测器。但是，要实现具有完整功能和突破性性能的大规模集成，仍然需要解决许多难题。尽管已证明硅是集成光学的重要材料，但其他具有互补特性的材料的组合对于实现特定的先进光子器件至关重要。然而，主要的挑战是材料的差异，这会导致混合集成方面的困难。APL Photonics对这一领域的浓厚兴趣使我们提供了这篇社论，其中将概述近期的进展，