Demonstration of passive, nonlinear, and active devices on a hybrid photonic platform.

The monolithic fabrication of passive, nonlinear, and active functionalities on a single chip is highly desired in the wake of the development and commercialization of integrated photonic platforms. However, the co-integration of diverse functionalities has been challenging as each platform is optimized for specific applications, typically requiring different structures and fabrication flows. In this article, we report on a monolithic and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor CMOS-compatible hybrid wafer-scale photonics platform that is suitable for linear, nonlinear, and active photonics based on moderate confinement 0.

Thick waveguides of low-stress stoichiometric silicon nitride on sapphire (SiNOS).

Low-stress stoichiometric silicon nitride (SiN) waveguides with an unprecedented thickness of up to 1350 nm and a width in the range of 2.2 - 2.7 µm are fabricated using a single LPCVD step on sapphire substrates (SiNOS).

High on-chip gain spiral AlO:Er waveguide amplifiers.

We demonstrate reactively sputtered AlO:Er waveguide amplifiers with an erbium concentration of 3.9 × 10 ions/cm, capable of achieving over 30 dB small signal net gain at 1532 nm using bidirectional pumping at 1480 nm. We observe on chip output powers of 10.

Octave-spanning supercontinuum generation in a CMOS-compatible thin SiN waveguide coated with highly nonlinear TeO.

Supercontinuum generation (SCG) is an important nonlinear optical process enabling broadband light sources for many applications, for which silicon nitride (SiN) has emerged as a leading on-chip platform. To achieve suitable group velocity dispersion and high confinement for broadband SCG the SiN waveguide layer used is typically thick (>∼700 nm), which can lead to high stress and cracks unless specialized processing steps are used. Here, we report on efficient octave-spanning SCG in a thinner moderate-confinement 400-nm SiN platform using a highly nonlinear tellurium oxide (TeO) coating.

Hybrid silicon-tellurium-dioxide DBR resonators coated in PMMA for biological sensing.

We report on silicon waveguide distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) cavities hybridized with a tellurium dioxide (TeO) cladding and coated in plasma functionalized poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) for label free biological sensors. We describe the device structure and fabrication steps, including reactive sputtering of TeO and spin coating and plasma functionalization of PMMA on foundry processed Si chips, as well as the characterization of two DBR designs via thermal, water, and bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein sensing. Plasma treatment on the PMMA films was shown to decrease the water droplet contact angle from ∼70 to ∼35°, increasing hydrophilicity for liquid sensing, while adding functional groups on the surface of the sensors intended to assist with immobilization of BSA molecules.