Waveguiding Light into Silicon Oxycarbide

Abstract

Featured Application: Silicon oxycarbide is demonstrated to be a potential photonic platform for integrated optics applications. Abstract:In this work, we demonstrate the fabrication of single mode optical waveguides in silicon oxycarbide (SiOC) with a high refractive index n = 1.578 on silica (SiO 2 ), exhibiting an index contrast of ∆n = 8.2%. Silicon oxycarbide layers were deposited by reactive RF magnetron sputtering of a SiC target in a controlled process of argon and oxygen gases. The optical properties of SiOC film were measured with spectroscopic ellipsometry in the near-infrared range and the acquired refractive indices of the film exhibit anisotropy on the order of 10 −2 . The structure of the SiOC films is investigated with atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The channel waveguides in SiOC are buried in SiO 2 (n = 1.444) and defined with UV photolithography and reactive ion etching techniques. Propagation losses of about 4 dB/cm for both TE and TM polarizations at telecommunication wavelength 1550 nm are estimated with cut-back technique. Results indicate the potential of silicon oxycarbide for guided wave applications.

Ultra-High Efficient Thermal Tuning of Dielectric Optical Waveguides

“…The SiOC films employed in this work were deposited by reactive RF magnetron sputtering from a SiC target in O2 and Ar atmosphere, according to the process described in [5]. As shown in Fig.…”

“…Silicon oxycarbide (SiOC) is a glass compound that has recently found applications as interlayer dielectric, anode material in ion batteries and photoluminescence [2][3][4]. Recently, we have demonstrated that SiOC is a suitable material for integrated photonics, because of the wide tuneability of the refractive index n and low absorption in near-infrared range, enabling the realization of high-index-contrast low-loss waveguides [5].…”

Tulip-Shaped Pattern Imprinting for Omni-Phobic Surfaces Using Partially Cured Photopolymer

“…In this paper, a tulip-shaped pattern imprinting process was designed to fabricate an omni-phobic surface with hydrophobicity and oleophobicity by referring to the ideas of the preceding study, and hydrophobicity and oleophobicity were confirmed through static contact angle measurement [17,18]. Previously, chemical surface treatment processes such as etching [19][20][21][22][23][24][25] and deposition/coating [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] were used as a process to fabricate hydrophobic/oleophobic surfaces, but chemicals that are not good for the human body or the environment, such as fluorine, were used. In contrast, the tulip-shaped pattern imprinting process proposed in this paper has the advantages of not using chemicals harmful to humans and the environment and being able to perform the process in minutes by inducing micro-pattern deformations based on UV nano-imprint lithography.…”

Silicon Oxycarbide Platform for Integrated Photonics

“…ilicon oxycarbide (SiOC) is a glass compound that has received significant attention from the scientific community and has already found applications in several fields of technologies, such as ion batteries and low-k interlayer dielectrics [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Recently, we demonstrated that SiOC has also promising optical characteristics to become an enabling material for photonic integrated circuits [11], because of its widely tuneable refractive index and high thermo-optic coefficient, the latter being one order of magnitude larger than glass-based materials and almost twice that of silicon [12]. A high thermo-optic coefficient enables to reduce the electrical power consumption of thermal actuators employed in optical waveguides to counteract fabrication tolerances and to tune reconfigurable architectures.…”