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A silicon/lithium niobate hybrid photonic material platform produced by laser processing

A silicon/lithium niobate hybrid photonic material platform produced by laser processing
A silicon/lithium niobate hybrid photonic material platform produced by laser processing
Silicon (Si) and lithium niobate (LiNbO3) are two materials that are synonymous with the electronics and photonics industries respectively and are supported by a significant amount of technological know-how. It has been suggested and demonstrated recently that Si could also be used for the production of integrated photonic devices, however its performance can be limited by the transmission cutoff at short wavelengths, a relatively high two-photon absorption, and a zero second order nonlinear optical susceptibility. LiNbO3 on the other hand is a very good dielectric material with very little electronic functionality and high second order nonlinearity. Thus, as these two materials have complementary properties, there is significant merit in combining them into a single hybrid system that will benefit from the properties of its constituents, as demonstrated via direct bonding in [1]. Here we propose a route for producing such a hybrid material system via local laser processing of a low cost, easy to produce amorphous silicon (a-Si) film deposited onto a single crystal LiNbO3 substrate. This research is based on recent encouraging results of a laser based crystallization process obtained in a-Si core optical fibres that not only produced crystallites with very large aspect ratios, but also allowed for tuning of the Si bandgap [2].
The emphasis of this laser-processing route has been on achieving structures with large crystals and low surface roughness in order to obtain good photonic and electronic device performance. Interestingly it was revealed that, apart from the expected local crystallization of the a-Si film, this particular system exhibited a plethora of interesting and potentially useful effects including the direct formation of optical waveguides in LiNbO3, enabled ferroelectric domain reversal and the spontaneous formation of periodic structural features on the Si film, shown in the figure below.
Mailis, Sakellaris
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Healy, Noel
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Martinez Jimenez, Gregorio
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Zisis, Greg
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Franz, Yohann
edb6208c-9f65-42c4-965e-b6bc54945602
Grech, David
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Chong, Harold
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Peacock, Anna
685d924c-ef6b-401b-a0bd-acf1f8e758fc
Mailis, Sakellaris
233e0768-3f8d-430e-8fdf-92e6f4f6a0c4
Healy, Noel
26eec85c-8d12-4f21-a67a-022f8dc2daab
Martinez Jimenez, Gregorio
6f3b34dd-33de-42b0-a69d-56e724da239b
Zisis, Greg
45a0bf08-5ab7-4d9b-9ad9-65ca7bf739a9
Franz, Yohann
edb6208c-9f65-42c4-965e-b6bc54945602
Grech, David
f44a3fe2-5f50-4192-9018-3fccd1612ceb
Chong, Harold
795aa67f-29e5-480f-b1bc-9bd5c0d558e1
Peacock, Anna
685d924c-ef6b-401b-a0bd-acf1f8e758fc

Mailis, Sakellaris, Healy, Noel, Martinez Jimenez, Gregorio, Zisis, Greg, Franz, Yohann, Grech, David, Chong, Harold and Peacock, Anna (2015) A silicon/lithium niobate hybrid photonic material platform produced by laser processing. European Congress and Exhibition on Advanced Materials and Processes (Euromat 2015), Warsaw, Poland. 20 - 24 Sep 2015. 1 pp .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Other)

Abstract

Silicon (Si) and lithium niobate (LiNbO3) are two materials that are synonymous with the electronics and photonics industries respectively and are supported by a significant amount of technological know-how. It has been suggested and demonstrated recently that Si could also be used for the production of integrated photonic devices, however its performance can be limited by the transmission cutoff at short wavelengths, a relatively high two-photon absorption, and a zero second order nonlinear optical susceptibility. LiNbO3 on the other hand is a very good dielectric material with very little electronic functionality and high second order nonlinearity. Thus, as these two materials have complementary properties, there is significant merit in combining them into a single hybrid system that will benefit from the properties of its constituents, as demonstrated via direct bonding in [1]. Here we propose a route for producing such a hybrid material system via local laser processing of a low cost, easy to produce amorphous silicon (a-Si) film deposited onto a single crystal LiNbO3 substrate. This research is based on recent encouraging results of a laser based crystallization process obtained in a-Si core optical fibres that not only produced crystallites with very large aspect ratios, but also allowed for tuning of the Si bandgap [2].
The emphasis of this laser-processing route has been on achieving structures with large crystals and low surface roughness in order to obtain good photonic and electronic device performance. Interestingly it was revealed that, apart from the expected local crystallization of the a-Si film, this particular system exhibited a plethora of interesting and potentially useful effects including the direct formation of optical waveguides in LiNbO3, enabled ferroelectric domain reversal and the spontaneous formation of periodic structural features on the Si film, shown in the figure below.

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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 21 September 2015
Venue - Dates: European Congress and Exhibition on Advanced Materials and Processes (Euromat 2015), Warsaw, Poland, 2015-09-20 - 2015-09-24
Organisations: Optoelectronics Research Centre

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 401215
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/401215
PURE UUID: d5cc505d-2e85-426d-ac93-48cb229fb0f2
ORCID for Sakellaris Mailis: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-8100-2670
ORCID for Harold Chong: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7110-5761
ORCID for Anna Peacock: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1940-7172

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Date deposited: 11 Oct 2016 09:27
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:30

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Contributors

Author: Sakellaris Mailis ORCID iD
Author: Noel Healy
Author: Gregorio Martinez Jimenez
Author: Greg Zisis
Author: Yohann Franz
Author: David Grech
Author: Harold Chong ORCID iD
Author: Anna Peacock ORCID iD

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