November 2021
Spotlight Summary by Juejun Hu
Templated dewetting for self-assembled ultra-low-loss chalcogenide integrated photonics
Jean et al. leveraged templated dewetting to create ultra-low-loss chalcogenide glass (ChG) micro-resonators with a record quality factor of 4.7 million, opening up their exciting applications in nonlinear frequency generation, spectroscopic sensing, and beyond.
Realizing low-loss ChG on-chip photonic devices, a critical step toward unleashing their potential applications in optics, has conventionally relied upon fine-line lithography and meticulously optimized etching protocols. Jean et al. took a different approach of templated dewetting, where ChG films were first deposited on a pre-patterned substrate followed by annealing at above the glass transition temperature to induce viscous flow under the action of surface tension, eventually shaping the desired photonic device geometries. While the concept of thermal reflow is not new to ChGs, the work brings the device performance to a completely unprecedented level, with losses down to 0.08 dB/cm. Further, the process is compatible with backend CMOS integration with a low thermal budget at below 240 ˚C.
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Realizing low-loss ChG on-chip photonic devices, a critical step toward unleashing their potential applications in optics, has conventionally relied upon fine-line lithography and meticulously optimized etching protocols. Jean et al. took a different approach of templated dewetting, where ChG films were first deposited on a pre-patterned substrate followed by annealing at above the glass transition temperature to induce viscous flow under the action of surface tension, eventually shaping the desired photonic device geometries. While the concept of thermal reflow is not new to ChGs, the work brings the device performance to a completely unprecedented level, with losses down to 0.08 dB/cm. Further, the process is compatible with backend CMOS integration with a low thermal budget at below 240 ˚C.
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Article Information
Templated dewetting for self-assembled ultra-low-loss chalcogenide integrated photonics
Philippe Jean, Alexandre Douaud, Sophie LaRochelle, Younès Messaddeq, and Wei Shi
Opt. Mater. Express 11(11) 3717-3735 (2021) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF