Low-temperature deposition of high-quality silicon oxynitride films for CMOS-integrated optics.

The growth of silicon oxynitride thin films applying remote inductively coupled, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition is optimized toward high optical quality at a deposition temperature as low as 150°C. Propagation losses of 0.5±0.05 dB/cm, 1.6±0.2 dB/cm, and 0.6±0.06 dB/cm are measured on as-deposited waveguides for wavelengths of 1300, 1550, and 1600 nm, respectively. Films were deposited onto a 0.25 μm technology mixed-signal CMOS chip to show the application perspective for three-dimensional integrated optoelectronic chips.

[1]  E. Voges,et al.  Low-Loss and Low-Birefringence High-Contrast Silicon-Oxynitride Waveguides for Optical Communication , 2009, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[2]  Mario Martinelli,et al.  Ring-resonator filters in silicon oxynitride technology for dense wavelength-division multiplexing systems. , 2003, Optics letters.

[3]  Jurriaan Schmitz,et al.  Adding functionality to microchips by wafer post-processing , 2007 .

[4]  Ioannis Raptis,et al.  A monolithic photonic microcantilever device for in situ monitoring of volatile compounds. , 2009, Lab on a chip.

[5]  F. Horst,et al.  Silicon Oxynitride Layers for Optical Waveguide Applications , 2000 .

[6]  F Bruno,et al.  Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of low-loss SiON optical waveguides at 15-microm wavelength. , 1991, Applied optics.

[7]  B. Jalali,et al.  Multilayer 3-D photonics in silicon. , 2007 .

[8]  T. G. van Leeuwen,et al.  Quantitative comparison of the OCT imaging depth at 1300 nm and 1600 nm , 2010, Biomedical optics express.

[9]  Jurgen Michel,et al.  Transparent amorphous silicon channel waveguides with silicon nitride intercladding layer , 2009 .

[10]  G. Lo,et al.  Low propagation loss SiN optical waveguide prepared by optimal low-hydrogen module. , 2008, Optics express.

[11]  J. Aarnio,et al.  Birefringence control and dispersion characteristics of silicon oxynitride optical waveguides , 1991 .

[12]  Yun Sun,et al.  Integration of Solar Cells on Top of CMOS Chips—Part II: CIGS Solar Cells , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[13]  Shiyang Zhu,et al.  Low-loss amorphous silicon wire waveguide for integrated photonics: effect of fabrication process and the thermal stability. , 2010, Optics express.

[14]  Jurgen Michel,et al.  High performance, waveguide integrated Ge photodetectors. , 2007, Optics express.

[15]  C. Denisse,et al.  Plasma‐enhanced growth and composition of silicon oxynitride films , 1986 .

[16]  Antonius Emilius Theodorus Kuiper,et al.  Deposition and composition of silicon oxynitride films , 1983 .

[17]  Rafael Ballabriga,et al.  Timepix, a 65k programmable pixel readout chip for arrival time, energy and/or photon counting measurements , 2007 .

[18]  A. Rubino,et al.  Amorphous silicon waveguides and light modulators for integrated photonics realized by low-temperature plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition. , 1996, Optics letters.

[19]  R. Wolters,et al.  Characterization of SiO2 films deposited at low temperature by means of remote ICPECVD , 2007 .