Monitoring and control of fabrication processes for integrated optics devices

Fabrication of integrated optoelectronic devices, such as for WDM applications, requires reliable and controlled processing and the integration of various components such as mirrors, gratings, waveguides, lasers and detectors. We have recently reported fabrication and device characteristics of a low loss multichannel demultiplexer. One of the key elements of this device was fabrication of low loss parabolic mirrors. An RIE process based on methane, hydrogen and carbon dioxide gases was developed for etching vertical mirrors through a double heterostructure. In this paper work we report development of processes, such as controlled dry etching of detector and shallow waveguides by using laser interferometer for process control, and masked overgrowth for active passive integration