Fabricating a hollow optical waveguide for optical communication applications

Author

Lo, Shih-Shou ; Chen, Chii-Chang ; Hsu, Shih-Chieh ; Liu, Cheng-Yi

Author_Institution

Inst. of Opt. Sci., Nat. Central Univ., Taoyan County, Taiwan

Volume

15

Issue

3

fYear

2006

fDate

6/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

584

Lastpage

587

Abstract

This work demonstrates a direct amorphous Si low-temperature wafer bonding technique to fabricate a semiconductor hollow waveguide with omni-directional reflectors for use in near infrared applications. The 2% dilute KOH solution was used to bond two ODR Si wafers with an amorphous Si thin film on the top of Si wafers. The resultant bonding interface is very thin, with a thickness that is close to that of the SiO₂ layer in the ODR substrate. Hence, the far-field image shows that light is strongly confined in the waveguides. The propagation loss was reduced to 1.0±0.5 db/cm in the TE and TM modes, broadening the development of the semiconductor hollow waveguide with omni-directional reflectors for use in optical communication applications.

Keywords

amorphous semiconductors; optical communication equipment; optical waveguides; silicon; SiO₂; amorphous Si low-temperature wafer bonding; hollow optical waveguide fabrication; near infrared applications; omni directional reflectors; optical communication applications; Amorphous materials; Hollow waveguides; Optical fiber communication; Optical films; Optical waveguides; Propagation losses; Semiconductor thin films; Semiconductor waveguides; Substrates; Wafer bonding; Hollow optical waveguide; omnidirectional reflector; wafer bonding;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Microelectromechanical Systems, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1057-7157

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JMEMS.2006.876795

Filename

1638485