Optical characterization of deuterated silicon-rich nitride waveguides

Xavier X Chia; George F R Chen; Yanmei Cao; Peng Xing; Hongwei Gao; Doris K T Ng; Dawn T H Tan

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-16889-7

Optical characterization of deuterated silicon-rich nitride waveguides

Sci Rep. 2022 Jul 26;12(1):12697. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-16889-7.

Authors

Xavier X Chia¹, George F R Chen¹, Yanmei Cao¹, Peng Xing¹, Hongwei Gao¹, Doris K T Ng², Dawn T H Tan^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Photonics Devices and Systems Group, Engineering Product Development, Singapore University of Technology and Design, 8 Somapah Road, Singapore, 487372, Singapore.
² Institute of Microelectronics, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), 2 Fusionopolis Way, Singapore, 138634, Singapore.
³ Photonics Devices and Systems Group, Engineering Product Development, Singapore University of Technology and Design, 8 Somapah Road, Singapore, 487372, Singapore. dawn_tan@sutd.edu.sg.
⁴ Institute of Microelectronics, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), 2 Fusionopolis Way, Singapore, 138634, Singapore. dawn_tan@sutd.edu.sg.

Abstract

Chemical vapor deposition-based growth techniques allow flexible design of complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible materials. Here, we report the deuterated silicon-rich nitride films grown using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The linear and nonlinear properties of the films are characterized, and we experimentally confirm that the silicon-rich nitride films grown with SiD₄ eliminates Si-H and N-H related absorption. The performance of identical waveguides for films grown with SiH₄ and SiD₄ are compared demonstrating a 2 dB/cm improvement in line with that observed in literature. Waveguides fabricated on the SRN:D film are further shown to possess a nonlinear parameter of 95 W^-1 m^-1, with the film exhibiting a linear and nonlinear refractive index of 2.46 and 9.8 [Formula: see text] 10^-18 m²W^-1 respectively.

Abstract

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