Ultraflat and low dispersion in a horizontal silicon nitride slot waveguide at near-infrared wavelengths

Abstract

A strip/slot hybrid horizontal silicon nitride slot waveguide is designed to provide an ultraflat and low dispersion. By optimizing the height and width of the structure, an ultraflat and low dispersion of ∼0±7 ps/nm/km over 812 nm wavelength range (from 1137 to 1949 nm) can be achieved. The waveguide with a 20-nm conformal overlayer has chromatic dispersion within ±1 ps/nm/km over 682-nm bandwidth. So the flatness is 0.0015, which is the lowest flatness in near-infrared regime of this kind of waveguide to our knowledge. The influence of the waveguide sidewall to dispersion is also discussed.