Study of Silicon Nitride Film Deposition Technology for Application in the Photonic Integrated Circuits
The article is devoted to the production technology of optical micro-waveguides made of silicon nitride. The silicon substrates with a silicon oxide sublayer were used to produce the waveguide structures. The silicon nitride films were deposited on the silicon oxide surface by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition and low-pressure chemical vapor deposition. The silicon nitride film thickness varied from 710 to 730 nm, depending on the chemical vapor deposition technology. Photolithography and reactive-ion etching were used to produce the waveguide structures. The waveguide structure width varied from 1 to 5 μm with a pitch of 500 nm. A cladding layer of silicon oxide was deposited on the structure surface. This paper describes the study of losses at a wavelength of 1.55 μm in the waveguide structures made by both chemical vapor deposition methods. A comparison of the deposition methods demonstrated that the developed method of plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition provided a significant reduction in the losses in structures compared to the low-pressure chemical vapor deposition.
Tags: lpcvd microwave photonics pecvd photonic integrated circuits silicon nitride нитрид кремния радиофотоника фотонные интегральные схемы
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