Abstract
A transfer printing (TP) method is presented for the micro-assembly of integrated photonic devices from suspended membrane components. Ultra thin membranes with thickness of 150nm are directly printed without the use of mechanical support and adhesion layers. By using a correlation alignment scheme vertical integration of single-mode silicon waveguides is achieved with an average placement accuracy of 100±70nm. Silicon (Si) μ-ring resonators are also fabricated and show controllable optical coupling by varying the lateral absolute position to an underlying Si bus waveguide.
Highlights
The silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material platform is rapidly becoming the standard for realisation of large scale photonic integrated circuits
The high index contrast and CMOS fabrication compatibility enable high yield production of compact devices using established foundry processing, which offers a broad scope of photonic components [1]
Due to the challenge introduced in producing efficient light sources in silicon [2] there has been significant recent work in the integration of III-V materials on silicon [3]
Summary
The silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material platform is rapidly becoming the standard for realisation of large scale photonic integrated circuits. The improved performance promised by such systems has accelerated the development of a range of techniques for the fabrication of efficient multi-layered hybrid photonic circuits They include flip chip integration [8] and quilt packaging for chip-to-chip interconnecting [9]. Vertical integration of fully fabricated single-mode silicon membrane devices is presented This method introduces a solution for high precision integration of single-mode optical waveguides without relying on back-end processing and allows the transfer of ultra-thin membranes (150nm thickness) without the need for intermediate processing of mechanical support layers. For future 3D integration of multiple membranes an inter-membrane optical spacer layer may be implemented to allow controllable vertical coupling and avoid the accumulation of thick silicon layers This can be achieved by applying an HF resistant polymer or dielectric cladding layer prior to the membrane device suspension and removal from the donor substrate. The devices fabricated in this work were printed with the Si membrane underside in direct contact with the receiver Si and Si02 BOX layers, without use of an intermediate adhesion layer such as divinylsiloxane-benzocyclobutene (DVS-BCB) or polymer as previously demonstrated [20]
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