Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate the optimization of a capacitively coupled plasma etching for the fabrication of a polysilicon waveguide with smooth sidewalls and low optical loss. A detailed experimental study on the influences of RF plasma power and chamber pressure on the roughness of the sidewalls of waveguides was conducted and waveguides were characterized using a scanning electron microscope. It was demonstrated that optimal combination of pressure (30 mTorr) and power (150 W) resulted in the smoothest sidewalls. The optical losses of the optimized waveguide were $4.1\pm 0.6\mathrm{dB}/\mathrm{cm}$.

© 2014 Optical Society of America

Lithium niobate ridged waveguides with smooth vertical sidewalls fabricated by an ultra-precision cutting method

Ryo Takigawa, Eiji Higurashi, Tetsuya Kawanishi, and Tanemasa Asano
Opt. Express 22(22) 27733-27738 (2014)

Low propagation loss AlGaAs waveguides fabricated with plasma-assisted photoresist reflow

Gyorgy A. Porkolab, Paveen Apiratikul, Bohan Wang, S. H. Guo, and Christopher J. K. Richardson
Opt. Express 22(7) 7733-7743 (2014)

Transfer of continuous-relief diffractive structures into diamond by use of inductively coupled plasma dry etching

Mikael Karlsson, Klas Hjort, and Fredrik Nikolajeff
Opt. Lett. 26(22) 1752-1754 (2001)

Low-loss polysilicon waveguides fabricated in an emulated high-volume electronics process

Jason S. Orcutt, Sanh D. Tang, Steve Kramer, Karan Mehta, Hanqing Li, Vladimir Stojanović, and Rajeev J. Ram
Opt. Express 20(7) 7243-7254 (2012)

2.5D+ plasma etching for a continuously adjustable sidewall angle in SiO₂

Arne Behrens and Stefan Sinzinger
Opt. Mater. Express 13(6) 1780-1796 (2023)