Abstract

Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of dimethylsilane and hexamethyldisilane produced thin films with a refractive index of 1.56 ± 0.01 at 633 nm. A decrease in the refractive index of approximately 3% was observed after irradiation with UV light from an ArF laser operating at 193 nm. Lower-intensity UV light from a Hg arc lamp induced a slower and controllable decrease in the refractive index. Top-side prism coupling showed the as-deposited organosilicon films to be multimode at 633 nm and single mode at 1550 nm. A model predicted that 30 s of UV irradiation with the Hg arc lamp would decrease the refractive index of the light-guiding film by approximately 0.01, converting the waveguide into single-mode operation across the spectrum of essential wavelengths for microphotonics. Irradiation followed by further coupling experiments confirmed this tunability. Trimming the refractive index of patternable organosilicon polymeric films presents a method of optimizing the coupling performance of PECVD microphotonic interconnect layers postdeposition.

© 2005 Optical Society of America

Trimming of microring resonators by photo-oxidation of a plasma-polymerized organosilane cladding material

Daniel K. Sparacin, Ching-yin Hong, Lionel C. Kimerling, Jurgen Michel, John P. Lock, and Karen K. Gleason
Opt. Lett. 30(17) 2251-2253 (2005)

Thin Organosilicon Films for Integrated Optics

P. K. Tien, G. Smolinsky, and R. J. Martin
Appl. Opt. 11(3) 637-642 (1972)

Reflective-type configuration for nearly phase-matching ?erenkov second-harmonic generation in a nonlinear-optical polymer waveguide

Feng Wang, Zhuangqi Cao, and Qishun Shen
Opt. Lett. 30(5) 522-524 (2005)

Optical waveguides structured with photoaligning polymers

Andrin Stump, Ulrich Gubler, and Christian Bosshard
Opt. Lett. 30(11) 1333-1335 (2005)

Optical properties of reactively sputtered TeOx amorphous films

Silvia M. Pietralunga, Franco D’Amore, and Andrea Zappettini
Appl. Opt. 44(4) 534-537 (2005)