Optical characterization of deuterated silicon-rich nitride waveguides

Abstract

Chemical vapor deposition-based growth techniques allow flexible design of CMOS-compatible materials. Here, we report the deuterated silicon-rich nitride films grown using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The linear and nonlinear properties of the films are characterized. We compare the absorption at 1550nm wavelength region for films grown with $Si{H}_4$ and $Si{D}_4$, and experimentally confirm that the silicon-rich nitride films grown with $Si{D}_4$ eliminates Si-H related absorption. Waveguides fabricated on the films are further shown to possess a linear and nonlinear refractive index of 2.46 and $9.8$ X $10^{-18}{m}^2{W}^{-1}$ respectively.

12 pages, 5 figures