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Development of polycrystalline silicon waveguides by laser crystallization

Development of polycrystalline silicon waveguides by laser crystallization
Development of polycrystalline silicon waveguides by laser crystallization
Silicon (Si) is an excellent material for integrated photonics devices as its high refractive index allows for small device footprints. To date, most of the work in this area has leveraged the single crystal silicon-on-insulator platforms, which are relatively expensive to produce and thus drive up component costs. Here we propose an alternative method to fabricate crystalline silicon waveguides by laser processing of an amorphous starting material. As well as reducing production costs, this approach has the added advantage of removing the substrate dependence so that more flexible alternatives can be considered. This method has previously been applied to a-Si wires grown inside silica capillaries and shown to produce very large crystallites [1]. Here we demonstrate preliminary results of laser-induced crystallization of a-Si films and micro-patterned wires produced by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on SiO2 substrates. The samples have been crystallized using a c.w. argon-ion laser at 488nm. Crystallized tracks have been written by scanning the focused beam across the samples using different laser intensities and scanning speeds. The resulting material quality is then studied using Raman spectrometry, optical and electronic microscopy and X-ray diffraction. For the planar films, we have produced crystallite sizes on the order of hundreds of nanometers to a few microns; similar to those obtained via conventional pulsed Excimer laser crystallization [2]. However, for the micro-patterned samples, we have found that it is possible to grow crystals that almost cover the entire width of the wire, over lengths of up to 18µm, considerably larger than what is typically reported for polysilicon waveguide devices [3]. Furthermore, this laser crystallization method has been observed to reform the surface of the Si wires resulting in very smooth sidewall profiles (as shown in Fig. 1) which is very important for low loss optical transmission in photonic devices.
Franz, Yohann
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Healy, Noel
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Martinez Jimenez, Gregorio
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Ben Masaud, Taha
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Chong, Harold
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Mailis, Sakellaris
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Peacock, Anna C
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Franz, Yohann
edb6208c-9f65-42c4-965e-b6bc54945602
Healy, Noel
26eec85c-8d12-4f21-a67a-022f8dc2daab
Martinez Jimenez, Gregorio
6f3b34dd-33de-42b0-a69d-56e724da239b
Ben Masaud, Taha
931dee8c-d8ac-4519-96ff-fa0813b4da59
Chong, Harold
795aa67f-29e5-480f-b1bc-9bd5c0d558e1
Mailis, Sakellaris
233e0768-3f8d-430e-8fdf-92e6f4f6a0c4
Peacock, Anna C
685d924c-ef6b-401b-a0bd-acf1f8e758fc

Franz, Yohann, Healy, Noel, Martinez Jimenez, Gregorio, Ben Masaud, Taha, Chong, Harold, Mailis, Sakellaris and Peacock, Anna C (2015) Development of polycrystalline silicon waveguides by laser crystallization. EUROMAT 2015, Warsaw, Poland. 20 - 24 Sep 2015.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Silicon (Si) is an excellent material for integrated photonics devices as its high refractive index allows for small device footprints. To date, most of the work in this area has leveraged the single crystal silicon-on-insulator platforms, which are relatively expensive to produce and thus drive up component costs. Here we propose an alternative method to fabricate crystalline silicon waveguides by laser processing of an amorphous starting material. As well as reducing production costs, this approach has the added advantage of removing the substrate dependence so that more flexible alternatives can be considered. This method has previously been applied to a-Si wires grown inside silica capillaries and shown to produce very large crystallites [1]. Here we demonstrate preliminary results of laser-induced crystallization of a-Si films and micro-patterned wires produced by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on SiO2 substrates. The samples have been crystallized using a c.w. argon-ion laser at 488nm. Crystallized tracks have been written by scanning the focused beam across the samples using different laser intensities and scanning speeds. The resulting material quality is then studied using Raman spectrometry, optical and electronic microscopy and X-ray diffraction. For the planar films, we have produced crystallite sizes on the order of hundreds of nanometers to a few microns; similar to those obtained via conventional pulsed Excimer laser crystallization [2]. However, for the micro-patterned samples, we have found that it is possible to grow crystals that almost cover the entire width of the wire, over lengths of up to 18µm, considerably larger than what is typically reported for polysilicon waveguide devices [3]. Furthermore, this laser crystallization method has been observed to reform the surface of the Si wires resulting in very smooth sidewall profiles (as shown in Fig. 1) which is very important for low loss optical transmission in photonic devices.

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Published date: 20 September 2015
Venue - Dates: EUROMAT 2015, Warsaw, Poland, 2015-09-20 - 2015-09-24
Organisations: Optoelectronics Research Centre

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 392752
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/392752
PURE UUID: b31046b1-cc68-4377-82cd-883287785115
ORCID for Harold Chong: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7110-5761
ORCID for Sakellaris Mailis: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-8100-2670
ORCID for Anna C Peacock: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1940-7172

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Date deposited: 21 Apr 2016 11:30
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:30

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Contributors

Author: Yohann Franz
Author: Noel Healy
Author: Gregorio Martinez Jimenez
Author: Taha Ben Masaud
Author: Harold Chong ORCID iD
Author: Sakellaris Mailis ORCID iD
Author: Anna C Peacock ORCID iD

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