High-Quality Amorphous Silicon Carbide for Hybrid Photonic Integration Deposited at a Low Temperature

High-Quality Amorphous Silicon Carbide for Hybrid Photonic Integration Deposited at a Low Temperature

Lopez Rodriguez, B. (TU Delft ImPhys/Esmaeil Zadeh group)
van der Kolk, R.J.H. (TU Delft QN/Kavli Nanolab Delft; Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft)
Aggarwal, Samarth (University of Oxford)
Sharma, N. (TU Delft ImPhys/Esmaeil Zadeh group)
Li, Z.Z.L. (TU Delft ImPhys/Esmaeil Zadeh group)
van der Plaats, D.W. (TU Delft EKL Equipment; TU Delft QN/Kavli Nanolab Delft)
Scholte, T.C. (TU Delft ImPhys/Pereira group)
Chang, J. (TU Delft QN/Groeblacher Lab)
Groeblacher, S. (TU Delft QN/Groeblacher Lab)
Pereira, S.F. (TU Delft ImPhys/Pereira group)
Bhaskaran, Harish (University of Oxford)
Esmaeil Zadeh, I.Z. (TU Delft ImPhys/Esmaeil Zadeh group)

2023

Integrated photonic platforms have proliferated in recent years, each demonstrating its unique strengths and shortcomings. Given the processing incompatibilities of different platforms, a formidable challenge in the field of integrated photonics still remains for combining the strengths of different optical materials in one hybrid integrated platform. Silicon carbide is a material of great interest because of its high refractive index, strong second- and third-order nonlinearities, and broad transparency window in the visible and near-infrared range. However, integrating silicon carbide (SiC) has been difficult, and current approaches rely on transfer bonding techniques that are time-consuming, expensive, and lacking precision in layer thickness. Here, we demonstrate high-index amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC) films deposited at 150 °C and verify the high performance of the platform by fabricating standard photonic waveguides and ring resonators. The intrinsic quality factors of single-mode ring resonators were in the range of Q_int = (4.7-5.7) × 10⁵ corresponding to optical losses between 0.78 and 1.06 dB/cm. We then demonstrate the potential of this platform for future heterogeneous integration with ultralow-loss thin SiN and LiNbO₃ platforms.

hybrid integration
low loss
low temperature
ring resonator
silicon carbide

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:91501304-fba6-4541-8582-36a95cc759e2

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.3c00968

2330-4022

ACS Photonics, 10 (10), 3748-3754

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2023 B. Lopez Rodriguez, R.J.H. van der Kolk, Samarth Aggarwal, N. Sharma, Z.Z.L. Li, D.W. van der Plaats, T.C. Scholte, J. Chang, S. Groeblacher, S.F. Pereira, Harish Bhaskaran, I.Z. Esmaeil Zadeh