Nanophotonic devices on thin buried oxide Silicon-On-Insulator substrates

TL;DR

This paper presents a silicon photonic platform on thin buried oxide SOI substrates with high confinement waveguides and resonators, achieving low propagation losses and high quality factors, enabling integration with electronics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel fabrication process using localized substrate removal on thin buried oxide SOI, enhancing photonic device performance and integration capabilities.

Findings

Propagation losses of 3.88 dB/cm (quasi-TE) and 5.06 dB/cm (quasi-TM)

Ring resonators with Q of 46,500 (loaded) and 148,000 (intrinsic)

Demonstration of high confinement silicon waveguides and nanotapers

Abstract

We demonstrate a silicon photonic platform using thin buried oxide silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates using localized substrate removal. We show high confinement silicon strip waveguides, micro-ring resonators and nanotapers using this technology. Propagation losses for the waveguides using the cutback method are 3.88 dB/cm for the quasi-TE mode and 5.06 dB/cm for the quasi-TM mode. Ring resonators with a loaded quality factor (Q) of 46,500 for the quasi-TM mode and intrinsic Q of 148,000 for the quasi-TE mode have been obtained. This process will enable the integration of photonic structures with thin buried oxide SOI based electronics.