Characterizations of realized metal-insulator-silicon-insulator-metal waveguides and nanochannel fabrication via insulator removal.

We investigate experimentally metal-insulator-silicon-insulator-metal (MISIM) waveguides that are fabricated by using fully standard CMOS technology. They are hybrid plasmonic waveguides, and they have a feature that their insulator is replaceable with functional material. We explain a fabrication process for them and discuss fabrication results based on 8-inch silicon-on-insulator wafers. We measured the propagation characteristics of the MISIM waveguides that were actually fabricated to be connected to Si photonic waveguides through symmetric and asymmetric couplers. When incident light from an optical source has transverse electric (TE) polarization and its wavelength is 1318 or 1554 nm, their propagation losses are between 0.2 and 0.3 dB/μm. Excess losses due to the symmetric couplers are around 0.5 dB, which are smaller than those due to the asymmetric couplers. Additional measurement results indicate that the MISIM waveguide supports a TE-polarized hybrid plasmonic mode. Finally, we explain a process of removing the insulator without affecting the remaining MISIM structure to fabricate ~30-nm-wide nanochannels which may be filled with functional material.

[1]  Min-Suk Kwon,et al.  Metal-insulator-silicon-insulator-metal waveguides compatible with standard CMOS technology. , 2011, Optics express.

[2]  A. Kristensen,et al.  Plasmonic V-groove waveguides with Bragg grating filters via nanoimprint lithography. , 2012, Optics express.

[3]  A. Y. Elezzabi,et al.  Experimental realization of subwavelength plasmonic slot waveguides on a silicon platform. , 2010, Optics letters.

[4]  A Kumar,et al.  0.48Tb/s (12x40Gb/s) WDM transmission and high-quality thermo-optic switching in dielectric loaded plasmonics. , 2012, Optics express.

[5]  G. Lo,et al.  Nanoplasmonic power splitters based on the horizontal nanoplasmonic slot waveguide , 2011 .

[6]  Shiyang Zhu,et al.  Silicon-based horizontal nanoplasmonic slot waveguides for on-chip integration. , 2011, Optics express.

[7]  Ray T. Chen,et al.  Electro-optic polymer infiltrated silicon photonic crystal slot waveguide modulator with 23 dB slow light enhancement , 2010 .

[8]  H. Baltes,et al.  REVIEW ARTICLE: Silicon dioxide sacrificial layer etching in surface micromachining , 1997 .

[9]  T. Ebbesen,et al.  Channel plasmon subwavelength waveguide components including interferometers and ring resonators , 2006, Nature.

[10]  H. Bender,et al.  Comparison between wet HF etching and vapor HF etching for sacrificial oxide removal , 2000 .

[11]  C. García,et al.  Partial loss compensation in dielectric-loaded plasmonic waveguides at near infra-red wavelengths. , 2012, Optics express.

[12]  Shiyang Zhu,et al.  Electro-absorption modulation in horizontal metal-insulator-silicon-insulator-metal nanoplasmonic slot waveguides , 2011 .

[13]  Vien Van,et al.  Conductor-gap-silicon plasmonic waveguides and passive components at subwavelength scale. , 2010, Optics express.

[14]  Xiang Zhang,et al.  Strongly enhanced molecular fluorescence inside a nanoscale waveguide gap. , 2011, Nano letters.

[15]  Vladimir M Shalaev,et al.  The Case for Plasmonics , 2010, Science.

[16]  Gilles Lerondel,et al.  Quantitative analysis and near-field observation of strong coupling between plasmonic nanogap and silicon waveguides , 2012 .

[17]  U. Levy,et al.  Experimental demonstration of locally oxidized hybrid silicon-plasmonic waveguide , 2010, CLEO: 2011 - Laser Science to Photonic Applications.

[18]  L. Douillard,et al.  Loss mechanisms of surface plasmon polaritons propagating on a smooth polycrystalline Cu surface. , 2012, Optics express.

[19]  Rajeev J Ram,et al.  Thermal and optical characterization of resonant coupling between surface plasmon polariton and semiconductor waveguides , 2011 .