Photonics integrated circuits on plasma-polymer-HMDSO: Single-mode TE00-TM00 straight waveguides, S-Bends, Y-Junctions and Mach-Zehnder Interferometers

The authors present the design, realization and characterization of photonics integrated circuits made up of organosilicon (SiO
_x
C
_y
H
_z
) materials called HexaMethylDiSilOxane plasma polymers (pp-HMDSO), elaborated by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD). Such a versatile technique offers the noticeable advantage to allow the control of respectively; the value of the refractive indices, the thickness of each layer while entailing a lower stress, as the gas proportion of precursors (HMDSO) and plasma conditions are conveniently adjusted. The cladding and core layers of such waveguides have been elaborated into the same reactor thanks to the same precursors with relevant changes regarding the plasma parameters. Then, various integrated photonics devices have been realized, from planar and single-mode rib waveguides to more complex structures like S-bends, Y-junctions, and Mach Zehnder interferometers (MZI). Such structures prove to yield a good single-mode confinement for both polarisations. Moreover optical losses ascribed to pp-HMDSO structures have been respectively evaluated to 5.6 dB.cm
¹
and 11.5 dB.cm
¹
for TE
₀₀
and TM
₀₀
optical modes. Hence, pp-HMDSO and PECVD appear as quite promising techniques for devising ultra-integrated components like microresonators, and many another functional devices