Nanostructured Silicon for Photonics The use of light to channel signals around electronic chips could solve several current problems in microelectronic evolution including: power dissipation interconnect bottlenecks input output from to optical communication channels poor signal bandwidth etc. It is unfortunate that silicon is not a good photonic material: it has a poor light emission efficiency and exhibits a negligible electro optical effect. Silicon photonics is a field having the objective of improving the physical properties of silicon; thus turning it into a photonic material and permitting the full convergence of electronics and photonics. Various research efforts based upon the use of nano sized silicon are described in this book. The authors review the field and report the recent research results achieved in Trento.The work is divided into the chapters: 1. Introduction 2. Silicon nanocrystal fundamentals 3. Nanoprobe technique to characterize Silicon nanocrystals 4. Silicon based light emitting diode 5. Optical gain in silicon and the quest for a silicon laser 6. Er coupled Si nanocrystal optical amplifiers 7. Design of silicon based optical components 8. Si based waveguides 9. Silicon based photonic crystals 10. Silicon based complex dielectric systems.This is altogether a unique summary of a pivotal issue in semiconductor research. This work describes recent research on improving the physical properties of silicon and the use of nano sized silicon. After an introduction on photonics and the measurement of light chapters cover silicon nanocrystal fundamentals nanoprobe techniques for characterizing silicon materials silicon based light emitting diodes optical gain in silicon and the quest for a silicon laser design of silicon based optical components Si based waveguides silicon based photonic crystals and silicon based complex dielectric systems. B&w images are included. There is no subject index.