Abstract
An increasing number of systems and applications depend on photonics for transmission and signal processing. This includes data centers, communications systems, environmental sensing, radar, lidar, and microwave signal generation. Such systems increasingly rely on monolithic integration of traditionally bulk optical components onto the chip scale to significantly reduce power and cost while simultaneously maintaining the requisite performance specifications at high production volumes. A critical aspect to meeting these challenges is the loss of the waveguide on the integrated optic platform, along with the capability of designing a wide range of passive and active optical elements while providing compatibility with low-cost, highly manufacturable processes, such as those found in CMOS. In this article, we report the demonstration of a record low propagation loss of 3±1 dB/m across the entire telecommunications C-band for a CMOS-compatible Ta2O5-core/SiO2-clad planar waveguide. The waveguide design, fabrication process, and optical frequency domain reflectometry characterization of the waveguide propagation loss and group index are described in detail. The losses and dispersion properties of this platform enable the integration of a wide variety of linear and nonlinear optical components on-chip, as well as integration with active rare-earth components for lasers and amplifiers and additionally silicon photonic integrated devices. This opens up new integration possibilities within the data communications, microwave photonics, high bandwidth electrical RF systems, sensing, and optical signal processing applications and research communities.
Highlights
Ultra-low-loss Si3N4-core∕SiO2-clad planar waveguides (ULLWs) on silicon provide the basis of an integration platform allowing for a broad variety of exceptional active and passive photonics components, such as on-chip erbium-doped lasers [1], ultra-high-Q resonators [2], sidewall Bragg grating filters [3], and arrayed waveguide grating routers [4]
Nonlinear optical processes on photonic chips can be used to generate and process signals all-optically with speeds far superior to Tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) is a CMOS-compatible material [13,14] that presents the opportunity to address both the requirements for nonlinear interactions and the fundamental loss limitations of Si3N4 as a waveguide core material, while at the same time preserving a high index contrast that allows for small bend radii
In conclusion, we have demonstrated record low measured propagation losses for Ta2O5-core∕SiO2-clad planar waveguides across the full telecommunications C-band
Summary
Ultra-low-loss Si3N4-core∕SiO2-clad planar waveguides (ULLWs) on silicon provide the basis of an integration platform allowing for a broad variety of exceptional active and passive photonics components, such as on-chip erbium-doped lasers [1], ultra-high-Q resonators [2], sidewall Bragg grating filters [3], and arrayed waveguide grating routers [4]. Such a platform is able to take advantage of the high index contrast between silica and silicon nitride to create waveguides that possess sub-millimeter bend radii and sub-dB/cm losses simultaneously. The group index and propagation loss of the waveguide structures are reported
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