Abstract
A technique for realizing electrically erasable photonics devices using micro-heaters for localized annealing of lattice defects in silicon is presented. The lattice defects have previously been introduced by ion implantation in order to cause a refractive index change. This technique can be used to fabricate electrically erasable on-chip directional couplers (DCs) and Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) switches. These devices can be used for wafer scale testing of photonics circuits, allowing testing of individual optical components in a complex photonic integrated circuit, or components for programmable optical circuits, whilst inducing negligible additional optical loss when erased electrically. In this paper, we report the designs and experimental results of fully, rapidly annealing of these devices.
Highlights
Silicon photonics is regarded as one of the most promising technologies for realizing on-chip integration of electronics and optics, and large-scale integration of optical circuits
The lattice defects have previously been introduced by ion implantation in order to cause a refractive index change
This technique can be used to fabricate electrically erasable on-chip directional couplers (DCs) and Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) switches. These devices can be used for wafer scale testing of photonics circuits, allowing testing of individual optical components in a complex photonic integrated circuit, or components for programmable optical circuits, whilst inducing negligible additional optical loss when erased electrically
Summary
Silicon photonics is regarded as one of the most promising technologies for realizing on-chip integration of electronics and optics, and large-scale integration of optical circuits. We have used the germanium ion implantation technique in combination with rapid thermal annealing (RTA) or localized laser annealing to create erasable grating couplers in order to address this issue [12]. These technologies can be used in trimming of ring resonators and MZIs [13]–[16]. We demonstrate the electrical annealing of Ge ion implanted silicon photonic components using integrated TiN micro-heaters. As the TiN heater was integrated with the photonic circuits, the annealing process can be utilized both at wafer-scale as well as after final packaging. The proposed approach is relatively fast and highly compatible with large scale integration
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