Design and fabrication of silicon photonic crystal optical waveguides

We have designed and fabricated waveguides that incorporate two-dimensional (2-D) photonic crystal geometry for lateral confinement of light, and total internal reflection for vertical confinement. Both square and triangular photonic crystal lattices were analyzed. A three-dimensional (3-D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) analysis was used to find design parameters of the photonic crystal and to calculate dispersion relations for the guided modes in the waveguide structure. We have developed a new fabrication technique to define these waveguides into silicon-on-insulator material. The waveguides are suspended in air in order to improve confinement in the vertical direction and symmetry properties of the structure. High-resolution fabrication allowed us to include different types of bends and optical cavities within the waveguides.

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