@article{VillasmuntaHeiseBreiteretal.2026, author = {Villasmunta, Francesco and Heise, Patrick and Breiter, Manuela and Schrader, Sigurd and Schenk, Harald and Regehly, Martin and Mai, Andreas}, title = {Monolithically Integrated Optical Through-Silicon Waveguides for 3D Chip-to-Chip Photonic Interconnects}, series = {IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics}, volume = {32}, journal = {IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics}, number = {2}, publisher = {IEEE}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:526-opus4-20828}, year = {2026}, abstract = {The scaling limitations of electrical interconnects are driving the demand for efficient optical chip-to-chip links. We report the first monolithic integration of air-clad optical through-silicon waveguides in silicon, fabricated via Bosch and cryogenic deep reactive-ion etching. Rib, single-bridge, and double-bridge designs with 50 μm cores and up to 150 μm propagation lengths have been evaluated. Cryogenic-etched rib waveguides achieve the highest median transmission (66\%, -1.80 dB), compared to Bosch-etched ribs (62\%, -2.08 dB). Across all geometries, 3 dB alignment windows range from 9.3 μm to 49.2 μm, with Bosch-etched double-bridge waveguides providing the broadest tolerance. We show that geometric fidelity outweighs sidewall roughness for transmission and alignment in these large-core, multimode optical through-silicon waveguides. This technology provides a scalable, complementary metal-oxide semiconductor-compatible pathway toward 3D photonic interconnects.}, language = {en} }