Subtractive processing of thick silicon nitride waveguide resonators: a comparison of soft and hard etch templates

Gabriel M. Colacion; Lala Rukh; Brandon Stone; Tara E. Drake

doi:10.1117/12.2650377

15 March 2023 Subtractive processing of thick silicon nitride waveguide resonators: a comparison of soft and hard etch templates

Gabriel M. Colacion, Lala Rukh, Brandon Stone, Tara E. Drake

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12407, Laser Resonators, Microresonators, and Beam Control XXV; 1240705 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2650377
Event: SPIE LASE, 2023, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Chip-based photonic microresonators are attractive for a multitude of applications owing to their small form factors and compatibility with photonic integration and standard CMOS fabrication. Within the last decade, the ring resonator geometry has gained widespread adoption in the application of optical frequency comb generation. However, these devices often require waveguides several hundreds of nanometers thick, posing a challenge for subtractive fabrication processes where the desired pattern must be chemically etched with the use of a protective “mask” pattern. Here, we demonstrate two procedures for subtractive processing of thick SiN waveguides based on both a polymer-based “soft” photoresist mask and a chromium metallic “hard” mask as etch templates. Optical characterization of our devices fabricated with both soft mask and hard mask techniques demonstrate quality factors of 320k ± 100k and 500k ± 180k., respectively. Furthermore, this work details two reliable pathways for achieving high quality optical microring resonators and illustrates the benefits and drawbacks of these two techniques.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Gabriel M. Colacion, Lala Rukh, Brandon Stone, and Tara E. Drake "Subtractive processing of thick silicon nitride waveguide resonators: a comparison of soft and hard etch templates", Proc. SPIE 12407, Laser Resonators, Microresonators, and Beam Control XXV, 1240705 (15 March 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2650377

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