Low-Temperature Sputtered Ultralow-Loss Silicon Nitride for Hybrid Photonic Integration

Zhang S, Bi T, Harder I, Ohletz O, Gannott F, Gumann A, Butzen E, Zhang Y, Del'Haye P (2024)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2024

Journal

Laser & Photonics Reviews Wiley-VCH Verlag

Book Volume: 18

Article Number: 2300642

Journal Issue: 4

DOI: 10.1002/lpor.202300642

Abstract

Silicon-nitride-on-insulator (Si3N4) photonic circuits have seen tremendous advances in many applications, such as on-chip frequency combs, Lidar, telecommunications, and spectroscopy. So far, the best film quality has been achieved with low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) and high-temperature annealing (1200°C). However, high processing temperatures pose challenges to the cointegration of Si3N4 with pre-processed silicon electronic and photonic devices, lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI), and Ge-on-Si photodiodes. This limits LPCVD as a front-end-of-line process. Here, ultralow-loss Si3N4 photonics based on room-temperature reactive sputtering is demonstrated. Propagation losses as low as 5.4 dB m−1 after 400°C annealing and 3.5 dB m−1 after 800°C annealing are achieved, enabling ring resonators with highest optical quality factors of > 10 million and an average quality factor of 7.5 million. To the best of the knowledge, these are the lowest propagation losses achieved with low temperature Si3N4. This ultralow loss enables the generation of microresonator soliton frequency combs with threshold powers of 1.1 mW. The introduced sputtering process offers full complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility with front-end silicon electronics and photonics. This could enable hybrid 3D integration of low loss waveguides with integrated lasers and lithium niobate on insulator.

Authors with CRIS profile

Pascal Del'Haye

Involved external institutions

Max-Planck-Institut für die Physik des Lichts (MPL) / Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Zhang, S., Bi, T., Harder, I., Ohletz, O., Gannott, F., Gumann, A.,... Del'Haye, P. (2024). Low-Temperature Sputtered Ultralow-Loss Silicon Nitride for Hybrid Photonic Integration. Laser & Photonics Reviews, 18(4). https://doi.org/10.1002/lpor.202300642

MLA:

Zhang, Shuangyou, et al. "Low-Temperature Sputtered Ultralow-Loss Silicon Nitride for Hybrid Photonic Integration." Laser & Photonics Reviews 18.4 (2024).

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