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Fabrication and characterization of three-dimensional silicon tapers

Anita Sure, Thomas Dillon, Janusz Murakowski, Chunchen Lin, David Pustai, and Dennis W. Prather

Open Access Open Access

Abstract

We present the fabrication of 3D adiabatically tapered structures, for efficient coupling from an optical fiber, or free-space, to a chip. These structures are fabricated integrally with optical waveguides in a silicon-on-insulator wafer. Fabrication involves writing a single grayscale mask in HEBS glass with a high-energy electron beam, ultra-violet grayscale lithography, and inductively coupled plasma etching. We also present the experimentally determined coupling efficiencies of the fabricated tapers using end-fire coupling. The design parameters of the tapered structures are based on electromagnetic simulations and are discussed in this paper.

©2003 Optical Society of America

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Figures (9)
Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Grayscale device fabrication steps.

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Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Design of the test structure.

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Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. Variation of the efficiency versus taper length (calculated using BPM).

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Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. Design and fabrication of a grayscale HEBS glass mask. A. Schematic representation of the mask exposure; the mask material darkens in response to energetic beam. B. Calibration of the mask response in net optical density as a function of exposure dose. From these curves, required dose is backed out to achieve desired glass darkening for tapers. C. Optical density map of the tapered couplers. D. Cross section of taper highlighted in C.

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Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. SEM viewgraph of the tapered couplers realized in photoresist.

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Fig. 6.
Fig. 6. SEM viewgraph of the Tapered couplers etched into silicon.

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Fig. 7.
Fig. 7. Experimental setup used to characterize the couplers.

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Fig. 8.
Fig. 8. Mode profile observed at the output facet of the symmetric couplers. The height of the central waveguide, in microns, is indicated near the images. The appearance of the circular mode for the 2 and 0.5µm waveguide implies that the coupler is maintaining the single mode behavior. However, for the 0.25µm waveguide, higher order modes also exist. The mode profile of the straight waveguide is also shown for comparison.

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Fig. 9.
Fig. 9. Experimental coupling efficiency of the symmetric couplers calculated with respect to a concurrently fabricated straight waveguide.

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