Exploring High Refractive Index Silicon-Rich Nitride Films by Low-Temperature Inductively Coupled Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition and Applications for Integrated Waveguides
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Checked on Feb 23, 2025
Exploring High Refractive Index Silicon-Rich Nitride Films by Low-Temperature Inductively Coupled Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition and Applications for Integrated Waveguides
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 250dgC 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 um x 3 um 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.