Design and fabrication of compact integrated optic waveguide coupler

using SiON/SiO2 material

Bidyut Deka, Aradhana Dutta, Gopal Hegde, and Partha P. Sahu

Citation: AIP Conf. Proc. 1536, 1231 (2013); doi: 10.1063/1.4810685

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4810685
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 Design and Fabrication of Compact Integrated Optic
Waveguide Coupler using SiON/SiO2 Material
Bidyut Deka1, Aradhana Dutta2, Gopal Hegde3 and Partha P. Sahu4,*
1, 2, 4
Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Tezpur University, Tezpur, Assam-784028 (India)
3
Center of Excellence in Nanoelectronics (CEN), Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, India
E-mail id: deka.bidyut@gmail.com1, duttaaradhana@gmail.com2, nanogopal@cense.iisc.ernet.in3,
pps@tezu.ernet.in4

Abstract. A comprehensive study on development of silicon oxynitride/silica based compact photonic components is
presented. Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition technique and Reactive Ion Etching was used for development
of compact directional coupler (DC) and two mode interference (TMI) coupler using a numerical model based on Simple
Effective Index Method. It is found that coupling length of the conventional TMI coupler is ~1.3 times lower than the
conventional DC. In addition, numerical and experimental results are compared with Beam Propagation Method.
Keywords: Optical waveguide, Silicon oxynitride, PECVD, Simple effective index method, Beam propagation method.
PACS: 42.82.Et; 42.82.-m;

INTRODUCTION access waveguides, two single mode output access

waveguides of same core dimensions and a coupling
In the recent years the increasing use of silicon region of length L.
oxynitride (SiOxNy, SiON) as optical waveguide
material for compact photonic components has opened
the access for novel technologies because of high
yield, low cost manufacturing and exclusive function
[1]-[3]. Their optical transparence property permits the
expansion of low loss waveguides for long range
application such as optical networks, optical
waveguide sensor and integrated quantum optic
circuits. This work has focused on deposition of high
quality SiON and SiO2 layers for the development of
compact Directional Coupler (DC) and Two Mode FIGURE 1. Schematic 3D view of conventional Directional
Interference (TMI) coupler based on the numerical Coupler (DC) with coupling gap ~ h.
results obtained by simple effective index method
(SEIM) [2]-[3] and comparison with beam propagation The beat length (L) of the coupling region is
method (BPM). defined by, /(00-01)=/2C; where the contribution
coefficient (C) is calculated using a mathematical
model based on sinusoidal mode SEIM [2] as,
DESIGN AND FABRICATION
ª1 §  2V1 ·­ § 2V1a · §  2V1a ·½ º
Fig.-1 shows the three dimensional (3D) schematic « 2 exp¨ h¸®exp¨ ¸  exp¨ ¸¾ »
view of 2x2 conventional directional coupler (DC) C S b «V1
2 3
© b ¹¯ © b ¹ © b ¹¿ » (1)
with two single mode waveguides of core width a and C0 64a3 « 1 §  2V2 ·­ § 2V2a · §  2V2a ·½ »
thickness b, separated by a small gap (h). P1 is the « 2 exp¨ h¸®exp¨ ¸  exp¨ ¸¾ »
input power launch into a waveguide where P2 and P3 ¬«V2 © b ¹¯ © b ¹ © b ¹¿ ¼»
are the output powers obtained as bar state and cross
state respectively. n1, n2 and n3 represents the where C0 is the normalization coefficient, 00, 01
refractive index of waveguide core, cladding (other are propagation constants of fundamental mode, first
than coupling region) and cladding (waveguide order mode and
separation gap) respectively. Fig.-2 shows the three
dimensional (3D) schematic view of a conventional b b
TMI coupler consisting of two single mode input V1 k n12  n22 V2 k n12  n32 (2)
2 2
Proceeding of International Conference on Recent Trends in Applied Physics and Material Science
AIP Conf. Proc. 1536, 1231-1232 (2013); doi: 10.1063/1.4810685
© 2013 AIP Publishing LLC 978-0-7354-1160-9/$30.00

1231

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 1

Coupling Power
0.8 conv TMI

Normalized
0.6 coupler
0.4 conv DC
0.2
0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Beat Length (LS)
FIGURE 2. Schematic 3D view of conventional two mode
interference (TMI) coupler with h=0 m.
FIGURE 4. Coupling characteristics vs. beat Length for
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION conventional DC (h=3 m) and TMI coupler (h=0 m) with
a=b=2 m, n1=1.5, n2=1.45 and n =5%.

300 Exp. value

Beat Length (Pm)

250
Conventional DC
200
Conventional
150 TMI coupler
100
50
0
0 2 4 6 8 10
'n (%)
FIGURE 5. BPM output results of (A) DC, (B) TMI
coupler and SEM images of (C) DC, (D) TMI coupler.
FIGURE 3. Beat length (L) versus n (%) for
conventional DC (h=3 m) and TMI coupler (h=0 m) with
a=b=2 m, n2=1.45 and ~ 1.55 m.
CONCLUSION
Fig.-3 shows the beat length (L) versus n (%) for
conventional DC (h~3 m) and TMI coupler (h~0 m) A comprehensive study on development of
with a=b=2 m, n2=1.45 and ~1.55 m where the compact DC and TMI coupler using SiON technology
black dots indicate the fabricated experimental results. is presented, using SEIM based numerical model and
It is observed that as index contrast (n) increases, the results are compared with BPM results using
beat length reduces. The normalized coupling power optiBPM software. The beat length of conventional
(P4/P1, P3/P1) with respect to the coupling length TMI coupler is obtained ~ 1.3 times lower than that of
obtained by using SEIM and equations (1)-(2) for the conventional directional coupler.
conventional DC (h~3 m) and TMI coupler (h~0 m)
with a=b=2 m, n1=1.5, n2=1.45, n=5% is shown in ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Fig.-4. The optical waveguide based DC and TMI
coupler are fabricated with the help of standard The authors dully acknowledge the help and
PECVD [3] and Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) [3] supports for the fabrication part that was carried out at
techniques using the standard SiON technology [3-4]. the CEN, IISc under INUP at IISc. which have been
The waveguide pattern was transferred by standard sponsored by DIT, MCIT, Government of India.
photolithography technique. Using a mixture of carbon
tetrafluoride (CF4) and oxygen (O2) it is again REFERENCES
transferred to the SiON layer by RIE using a Cr layer
of thickness~150 nm. The top cladding, SiO2 layer of 1. K.S. Chiang, J. of Lightwave Tech. 9, 62-72 (1991).
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image of the fabricated DC and TMI coupler with beat http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12596-009-
length ~96 m and ~45 m are shown in Fig.-5(C) and 0008-7.
Fig.-5(D) respectively whereas the BPM results [Fig.- 3. H. Nishihara, M. Haruna and T. Suhara, Optical
5(A) & Fig.-5(B)] obtained by using commercially Integtared Circuits, Mc-Graw-Hill, 1989.
available optiBPM software (v 9.0) agree well with 4. K. Chen and H. P. Chan, J. of Photoenergy doi:
10.1155/2012/496267 (2012).
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