Fabrication and characterization of two-dimensional photonic crystal waveguides etched in InP-based heterostructure

We demonstrate low-loss photonic-crystals (PCs) realized in InP/GaAsInP/InP by Ar/Cl/sub 2/ based Chemically Assisted Ion Beam Etching (CAIBE). By optimizing the etching parameters so that the physical and the chemical components are balanced, we succeed in obtaining holes deeper than 2 /spl mu/m even for a hole diameter as small as 220 nm. The quality of PCs etched in two different process conditions is compared by using the shape and the position of mode-gaps in PC waveguides as an assessment tool. PCs etched with an optimized process exhibit a loss parameter /spl epsiv/" as small as 0.18, which corresponds to a experimentally determined loss of 1 dB/100 /spl mu/m in W3 PC waveguides.