Silicon-based Optical Waveguide Using Undercut Etching Method

• Main Authors: Jia-rung Shie, 謝佳榮
• Other Authors: Yi-Jen Chiu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/nb3j88

碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 光電工程學系研究所 === 97 === In this work, a novel type of optical waveguide, namely two-step undercut-etching Si waveguide (TSUESW), fabricated in Si-substrate is proposed and demonstrated. All this waveguide processing is based on two step of SF6-based dry etching method. In the first step, an anisotropic etching by Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) is used to define the waveguide core. After that, an undercut etching through an isotropic etching processing Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) is then utilized to decouple the optical light of the waveguide core from Si substrate. In the measurement setup, an optical propagation loss coefficient of 2.89dB/cm is obtained by extracting from Fabry-Perot oscillation, suggesting the confined optical mode in TSUESW can be realized. A tapered optical waveguide is also designed and fabricated, where the core of tapered structure is defined as widths of from 20μm to 6μm for optical fiber coupler. A 4.13dB/cm of loss from 700μm long waveguide is found in such tapered waveguide. Through the nonlinear properties of Si material, a Four-Wave Mixing (FWM) behavior is observed in tapered waveguide, further confirming the optical power can be highly confined in small core of TSUESW. It also should be noted that the waveguide technology template can be processed in a Si-substrate to realize CMOS-compatible processing, avoiding high-cost Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) technology.