Nd-doped polymer waveguide amplifiers at 850-930 nm

Nd-complex-doped, polymer channel waveguides were realized on thermally oxidized silicon wafers by a simple fabrication procedure. Broadband optical gain was demonstrated at 850-930 nm. Internal net gain up to 5.3 dB/cm was obtained at 850 nm, which is very promising for optical amplification in optical backplanes. With this result a route toward low-cost integrated waveguide amplifiers for optical interconnects has been opened

Reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer using microring resonators

We report a reconfigurable four-channel optical add-drop multiplexer for use in access networks. The optical add-drop multiplexer (OADM) is based on vertically coupled thermally tunable Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/--SiO/sub 2/ microring resonators (MRs) and has been realized on a footprint of 0.25 mm/sup 2/. Individual MRs in the OADM can be tuned across the full free-spectral range of 4.18 nm and have a 3-dB bandwidth of 50 GHz

Densely integrated photonic devices based on microring resonators for use in access networks

A reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer as well as a 1x4x4 reconfigurable λ router, designed for use in the second telecom window, are demonstrated. The devices that each have a footprint less than 2 mm$_{2}$ are based on thermally tunable vertically coupled microring resonators fabricated in $Si_{3}N_{4}$/$SiO_{2}$

Optimized Deep UV hardbake process for metal-free dry-etching of integrated optical devices

Photostabilization is a widely used post lithographic resist treatment process, which allows hardening the resist profile in order to maintain critical dimensions and to increase selectivity in subsequent process steps such as reactive ion etching. In this paper we present the optimization of Deep UV-curing of 0,3-3.5 μm thick positive resist profiles followed by heat treatment up to 280 0C. The effectiveness of this resist treatment allows for metal mask free reactive ion etching with selectivity up to 6 for silicon structures, thermal silicon oxide and silicon oxynitride. A number of experimental results on integrated optics structures are presented that demonstrate the improved etch profiles obtained with this approach

High Resolution Silicon-Oxynitride Arrayed Waveguide Grating Spectrometers

We present experimental results of silicon-oxynitride (SiON) based arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) spectrometers operating around 800 nm and 1300 nm. A 100-channel AWG with 0.4 nm channel spacing centered at 1300 nm and a 125-channel AWG with 0.16 nm channel spacing centered at 800 nm have been fabricated and characterized. The measured crosstalk and insertion loss values near the central wavelengths were ranging between -22 and -32 dB and between 3.2 and 2 dB for 800-nm AWG and 1300-nm AWG, respectively. The highest wavelength resolution (0.16 nm) and the largest free spectral range value (38.8 nm) have been achieved in SiON technology so far