Fabrication of low-loss silicon-on-oxidized-porous-silicon strip waveguide using focused proton-beam irradiation

E J Teo; A A Bettiol; P Yang; M B H Breese; B Q Xiong; G Z Mashanovich; W R Headley; G T Reed

doi:10.1364/ol.34.000659

Fabrication of low-loss silicon-on-oxidized-porous-silicon strip waveguide using focused proton-beam irradiation

Opt Lett. 2009 Mar 1;34(5):659-61. doi: 10.1364/ol.34.000659.

Authors

E J Teo¹, A A Bettiol, P Yang, M B H Breese, B Q Xiong, G Z Mashanovich, W R Headley, G T Reed

Affiliation

¹ Centre for Ion Beam Applications, Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, Singapore. phytej@nus.edu.sg

PMID: 19252584
DOI: 10.1364/ol.34.000659

Abstract

We have successfully fabricated low-loss silicon-on-oxidized-porous-silicon (SOPS) strip waveguides with high-index contrast using focused proton-beam irradiation and electrochemical etching. Smooth surface quality with rms roughness of 3.1 nm is achieved for a fluence of 1x10(15)/cm(2) after postoxidation treatment. Optical characterization at a wavelength of 1550 nm shows a loss of 1.1+/-0.4 dB/cm and 1.2+/-0.4 dB/cm in TE and TM polarization respectively, which we believe is the lowest reported loss for SOPS waveguides. This opens up new opportunities for all-silicon-based optoelectronics applications.