Towards low-loss waveguides in SOI and Ge-on-SOI for mid-IR sensing

Silicon-on-insulator is an attractive choice for developingmid-infrared photonic integrated circuits. It benefits frommature fabrication technologies and integrationwith on-chip electronics.We report the development of SOI channel and ribwaveguides formid-infraredwavelengths centered at 3.7 μm. Propagation loss of∼1.44 dB/cm and∼1.2 dB/cmhas beenmeasured for TE andTMpolarizations in channel waveguides, respectively. Similarly, propagation loss of∼1.39 dB/cm and∼2.82 dB/cmhas beenmeasured for TE andTMpolarized light in ribwaveguides. The propagation loss is consistent with themeasurements obtained using a different characterization setup and for the samewaveguide structures on a different chip. Given the tightly confined single-mode in our 400 nm thick Si core, this propagation loss is among the lowest losses reported in literature.We also report the development of Ge-on-SOI stripwaveguides formid-infraredwavelengths centered at 3.7 μm.Minimumpropagation loss of∼8 dB/cmhas beenmeasuredwhich commensurate with that required for high powermidinfrared sensing. Ge-on-SOIwaveguides provide an opportunity to realizemonolithically integrated circuit with on-chip light source and photodetector.

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