Visible and near-infrared photonic components library based on silicon nitride platform

In this paper we present a library of photonic components based on silicon nitride on insulator (SiNOI) waveguide platform. SiNOI is CMOS compatible technology hence it offers mass-scale and low-cost fabrication. It also exhibit much lower propagation losses and thermo-optical coefficient when compared to silicon on insulator (SOI) technology. In addition, it is more tolerant to fabrication tolerance and have wide transparency range from visible to mid-infrared. The SiNOI platform consists of a 400 nm thick SiN layer with 4.5 μm buried silicon dioxide oxide and 3 μm oxide cladding. The library includes single mode waveguides, bend waveguides, power dividers (directional couplers and multimode interferometers), strip to slot mode converters and grating couplers. Components for both the near infrared wavelength at λ=1550 nm and the visible wavelength at λ=633nm are included in this library. These components are the building blocks of various photonic devices and systems for different applications such as light detection and ranging (Lidar) and chemical or biological sensing. The components in the library have been designed and optimized using finite difference eigenmode (FDE) and finite difference time domain (FDTD) solvers. The components of this library were fabricated using applied nanotools (ANT) SiN multi-project wafer (MPW) run. In this MPW run electron beam lithography is used for waveguide patterning. The minimum feature size is 120 nm and the minimum feature spacing is 120 nm. Fully-etched devices are created using anisotropic inductively coupled plasma - reactive ion etching (ICP-RIE) process. The components were experimentally characterized and measurement results were obtained.