High-Performance and Fabrication-Tolerant 3 dB Adiabatic Coupler Based on Ultralow-Loss Silicon Waveguide by Tri-Layer Hard Mask Etching Process.
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| Title: | High-Performance and Fabrication-Tolerant 3 dB Adiabatic Coupler Based on Ultralow-Loss Silicon Waveguide by Tri-Layer Hard Mask Etching Process. |
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| Authors: | Zhang, Ke1,2 (AUTHOR), Yu, Yunchu2 (AUTHOR), Zhu, Nanfei1,2 (AUTHOR), Zhang, Senlin2 (AUTHOR), Sun, Jie2 (AUTHOR), Ding, Shijin1 (AUTHOR), Zhang, David Wei1 (AUTHOR) |
| Source: | Nanomaterials (2079-4991). Jun2025, Vol. 15 Issue 12, p947. 11p. |
| Subjects: | Optical quantum computing, Directional couplers, Integrated circuits, Computer systems, Etching |
| Abstract: | Silicon photonics has emerged as critical for advancing photonic integrated circuits (PICs), but waveguide losses, primarily resulting from sidewall roughness, remain a primary challenge. In this work, we demonstrate a tri-layer hard mask etching process that produces strip silicon waveguides with propagation losses as low as 1.48 dB/cm, i.e., a 37% improvement over the conventional Si3N4 hard mask technique. Based on the abovementioned approach, the fabricated 3 dB adiabatic directional couplers achieve a nearly ideal splitting ratio of 50.2:49.8 as well as an excess loss of 0.067 dB. These results indicate that the tri-layer hard mask etching process enables scalable and ultralow-loss PICs to be fabricated for high-speed optical interconnects and quantum computing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| Database: | Engineering Source |
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| Abstract: | Silicon photonics has emerged as critical for advancing photonic integrated circuits (PICs), but waveguide losses, primarily resulting from sidewall roughness, remain a primary challenge. In this work, we demonstrate a tri-layer hard mask etching process that produces strip silicon waveguides with propagation losses as low as 1.48 dB/cm, i.e., a 37% improvement over the conventional Si3N4 hard mask technique. Based on the abovementioned approach, the fabricated 3 dB adiabatic directional couplers achieve a nearly ideal splitting ratio of 50.2:49.8 as well as an excess loss of 0.067 dB. These results indicate that the tri-layer hard mask etching process enables scalable and ultralow-loss PICs to be fabricated for high-speed optical interconnects and quantum computing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| ISSN: | 20794991 |
| DOI: | 10.3390/nano15120947 |
