Exploring silicon oxycarbide films for photonic waveguides

Silicon oxycarbide thin films deposited with reactive rf magnetron sputtering are exploited to fabricate photonics waveguides with two high refractive indices of 1.58 and 1.82 exhibiting index contrast of 8% and 18% with silica glass. The propagation losses are estimated in the telecom wavelength range and the results demonstrate the potential of silicon oxycarbide for photonics applications.