Abstract
Silicon nanophotonics and plasma etching
Single mode silicon photonic wire waveguides allow low-loss sharp micro-bends, which enables compact
photonic devices and circuits. The circuit compactness is achieved at the cost of loss induced by micro-bends,
which can seriously affect the device performance. The bend loss strongly depends on the bend radius,
polarization, waveguide dimension and profile. In this paper, we present the effect of waveguide profile on the
bend loss. We present waveguide profile improvement with optimized etch chemistry and the role of etch
chemistry in adapting the etch profile of silicon is investigated. We experimentally demonstrate that by
making the waveguide sidewalls vertical, the bend loss can be reduced up to 25% without affecting the
propagation loss of the photonic wires. The bend loss of a 2 ìmbend has been reduced from 0.039dB/90° bend
to 0.028dB/90° bend by changing the sidewall angle from 81° to 90°, respectively. The propagation loss of 2.7±
0.1dB/cm and 3±0.09dB/cm was observed for sloped and vertical photonic wires respectively was obtained. |
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Citations (OpenCitations)
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