Optical characterization of deuterated silicon-rich nitride waveguides

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 12697
• Main Authors: Chia, Xavier X., Chen, George F. R., Cao, Yanmei, Xing, Peng, Gao, Hongwei, Ng, Doris K. T., Tan, Dawn T. H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 26.07.2022; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/166; 639/624; Chemical vapor deposition; Gases; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Optical properties; Optics; Photonics; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Silicon; Silicon nitride; Spectrum analysis; Vapors
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-16889-7

Chemical vapor deposition-based growth techniques allow flexible design of complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible materials. Here, we report the deuterated silicon-rich nitride films grown using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The linear and nonlinear properties of the films are characterized, and we experimentally confirm that the silicon-rich nitride films grown with SiD 4 eliminates Si–H and N–H related absorption. The performance of identical waveguides for films grown with SiH 4 and SiD 4 are compared demonstrating a 2 dB/cm improvement in line with that observed in literature. Waveguides fabricated on the SRN:D film are further shown to possess a nonlinear parameter of 95 W −1  m −1 , with the film exhibiting a linear and nonlinear refractive index of 2.46 and 9.8 × 10 –18 m 2 W −1 respectively.