Exploring High Refractive Index Silicon-Rich Nitride Films by Low-Temperature Inductively Coupled Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition and Applications for Integrated Waveguides

Silicon-rich nitride films are developed and explored using an inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition system at low temperature of 250 °C with an ammonia-free gas chemistry. The refractive index of the developed silicon-rich nitride films can increase from 2.2 to 3.08 at 1550 nm wavele...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:ACS applied materials & interfaces 2015-10, Vol.7 (39), p.21884-21889
Main Authors: Ng, Doris K. T, Wang, Qian, Wang, Ting, Ng, Siu-Kit, Toh, Yeow-Teck, Lim, Kim-Peng, Yang, Yi, Tan, Dawn T. H
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Silicon-rich nitride films are developed and explored using an inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition system at low temperature of 250 °C with an ammonia-free gas chemistry. The refractive index of the developed silicon-rich nitride films can increase from 2.2 to 3.08 at 1550 nm wavelength while retaining a near-zero extinction coefficient when the amount of silane increases. Energy dispersive spectrum analysis gives the silicon to nitrogen ratio in the films. Atomic force microscopy shows a very smooth surface, with a surface roughness root-mean-square of 0.27 nm over a 3 μm × 3 μm area of the 300 nm thick film with a refractive index of 3.08. As an application example, the 300 nm thick silicon-rich nitride film is then patterned by electron beam lithography and etched using inductively coupled plasma system to form thin-film micro/nano waveguides, and the waveguide loss is characterized.
ISSN:1944-8244
1944-8252
DOI:10.1021/acsami.5b06329