CN114400504A - Preparation method of low-loss silicon nitride waveguide - Google Patents
Preparation method of low-loss silicon nitride waveguide Download PDFInfo
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- CN114400504A CN114400504A CN202111485430.3A CN202111485430A CN114400504A CN 114400504 A CN114400504 A CN 114400504A CN 202111485430 A CN202111485430 A CN 202111485430A CN 114400504 A CN114400504 A CN 114400504A
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
- H01S—DEVICES USING THE PROCESS OF LIGHT AMPLIFICATION BY STIMULATED EMISSION OF RADIATION [LASER] TO AMPLIFY OR GENERATE LIGHT; DEVICES USING STIMULATED EMISSION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION IN WAVE RANGES OTHER THAN OPTICAL
- H01S5/00—Semiconductor lasers
- H01S5/20—Structure or shape of the semiconductor body to guide the optical wave ; Confining structures perpendicular to the optical axis, e.g. index or gain guiding, stripe geometry, broad area lasers, gain tailoring, transverse or lateral reflectors, special cladding structures, MQW barrier reflection layers
- H01S5/22—Structure or shape of the semiconductor body to guide the optical wave ; Confining structures perpendicular to the optical axis, e.g. index or gain guiding, stripe geometry, broad area lasers, gain tailoring, transverse or lateral reflectors, special cladding structures, MQW barrier reflection layers having a ridge or stripe structure
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- H—ELECTRICITY
- H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
- H01S—DEVICES USING THE PROCESS OF LIGHT AMPLIFICATION BY STIMULATED EMISSION OF RADIATION [LASER] TO AMPLIFY OR GENERATE LIGHT; DEVICES USING STIMULATED EMISSION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION IN WAVE RANGES OTHER THAN OPTICAL
- H01S5/00—Semiconductor lasers
- H01S5/20—Structure or shape of the semiconductor body to guide the optical wave ; Confining structures perpendicular to the optical axis, e.g. index or gain guiding, stripe geometry, broad area lasers, gain tailoring, transverse or lateral reflectors, special cladding structures, MQW barrier reflection layers
- H01S5/22—Structure or shape of the semiconductor body to guide the optical wave ; Confining structures perpendicular to the optical axis, e.g. index or gain guiding, stripe geometry, broad area lasers, gain tailoring, transverse or lateral reflectors, special cladding structures, MQW barrier reflection layers having a ridge or stripe structure
- H01S5/2202—Structure or shape of the semiconductor body to guide the optical wave ; Confining structures perpendicular to the optical axis, e.g. index or gain guiding, stripe geometry, broad area lasers, gain tailoring, transverse or lateral reflectors, special cladding structures, MQW barrier reflection layers having a ridge or stripe structure by making a groove in the upper laser structure
Abstract
The invention discloses a preparation method of a low-loss silicon nitride waveguide, belonging to the technical field of preparation of silicon-based photonic devices. According to the invention, a thick silicon dioxide film is grown on a silicon chip to be used as a lower cladding; realizing the pattern transfer of the target waveguide groove on the lower cladding layer through photoetching; carrying out high-temperature annealing to realize silica reflux; depositing a silicon nitride film by using an anisotropic deposition method; growing a core layer protective layer silicon oxide film by using chemical vapor deposition; removing the silicon nitride film at the high position by chemical mechanical planarization, wherein the silicon nitride in the groove is used as a waveguide core layer; high-temperature annealing is carried out to improve the appearance and optical loss of the silicon nitride; growing a thick silicon dioxide film as an upper cladding; and completing the preparation of the low-loss silicon nitride waveguide. The invention uses a method compatible with a CMOS platform, and utilizes an anisotropic groove filling method and a chemical mechanical grinding method to avoid etching and direct grinding of the waveguide core layer, thereby avoiding the loss caused by surface roughness and damage of the core layer.
Description
Technical Field
The invention relates to a preparation method of a low-loss silicon nitride waveguide, belonging to the technical field of preparation of silicon-based photonic devices.
Background
The refractive index of silicon nitride materials is higher than that of silicon dioxide, and the thin film methods of silicon oxide and silicon nitride are compatible with CMOS platforms. On silicon-based platforms, silicon nitride is an extremely ideal core material; the good photoelectric properties of silica, and the extremely low optical loss, make it the best choice for the cladding material. In the rapid development of silicon-based photonics today, the core layer is a low-loss waveguide, microcavity, grating and other structures of silicon nitride, which can provide a huge method and technical support for photonics design.
Nevertheless, the existing silicon nitride waveguide approach has three drawbacks: firstly, due to the material characteristics of silicon nitride, the loss of silicon nitride to light is higher than that of silicon oxide material; secondly, in the traditional silicon nitride waveguide processing method, an etching method is used for etching the silicon nitride core layer, and great side wall roughness is introduced in the etching, so that the loss is increased; thirdly, most of the existing silicon nitride waveguides are 300 nm-500 nm, which not only affect the processing due to the stress problem, but also the thicker silicon nitride waveguide is more easily affected by the roughness of the side wall, thereby having larger loss.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention mainly aims to provide a preparation method of a low-loss silicon nitride waveguide, which can realize the preparation of the low-loss silicon nitride waveguide and reduce the loss of the silicon nitride waveguide. The silicon nitride waveguide of the present invention includes, but is not limited to, a strip waveguide, a ridge waveguide, etc., but includes any silicon nitride material that can realize a function of guiding light waves. The optical waveguide is defined by the silicon nitride core layer, so that the energy of light is mainly transmitted in the silicon oxide, and the characteristic of ultralow optical loss of the silicon oxide can be utilized. The grooves are filled through anisotropic film deposition, and the silicon nitride core layer is formed in a planarization mode, so that the silicon nitride core layer is prevented from being etched and directly ground, and the loss caused by surface roughness and damage of the core layer is avoided. The thin silicon nitride core layer is used for realizing weak light binding, and simultaneously, the side wall of the silicon nitride is small, so that the influence of side wall roughness on light loss is further reduced. The thinner silicon nitride core layer is meant to be thinner than prior art silicon nitride waveguides. The invention can be compatible with the weak-bound optical waveguide structure and realizes the preparation of the silicon nitride optical waveguide with low loss.
The purpose of the invention is realized by the following technical scheme:
the invention discloses a preparation method of a low-loss silicon nitride waveguide, which comprises the following steps:
the method comprises the following steps: preparing a wafer substrate and cleaning the substrate;
step two: growing a thick silicon oxide lower cladding layer on the substrate;
step three: using photoetching and etching methods to complete pattern transfer, forming a groove on the lower cladding, and completing the pattern definition of the waveguide;
step four: carrying out high-temperature annealing on the waveguide to realize the reflux of the silicon oxide;
step five: growing an anisotropic silicon nitride film by using an anisotropic deposition method;
step six: growing a core layer protective layer silicon oxide film by using a chemical vapor deposition method;
step seven: using a chemical mechanical planarization method to perform chemical mechanical polishing planarization on the wafer, and removing the silicon nitride film at the high position;
step eight: high-temperature annealing is carried out to improve the appearance and optical loss of the silicon nitride;
step nine: and growing a thick silicon oxide film to finish the upper cladding and finish the preparation of the low-loss silicon nitride waveguide.
The invention discloses a preparation method of a low-loss silicon nitride waveguide, which further comprises a dry-method wet-method treatment method for improving the surface of a thin film before and after the deposition and etching of the thin film.
According to the preparation method of the low-loss silicon nitride waveguide, the silicon nitride core layer is used for defining the optical waveguide, so that the light energy is mainly transmitted in the silicon oxide, and the characteristic of ultralow optical loss of the silicon oxide can be utilized. The grooves are filled through anisotropic film deposition, and the silicon nitride core layer is formed in a planarization mode, so that the silicon nitride core layer is prevented from being etched and directly ground, and the loss caused by surface roughness and damage of the core layer is avoided. The thin silicon nitride core layer is used for realizing weak light binding, and simultaneously, the side wall of the silicon nitride is small, so that the influence of side wall roughness on light loss is further reduced. The thinner silicon nitride core layer is meant to be thinner than prior art silicon nitride waveguides. The method can be compatible with the weak-bound optical waveguide structure, and further realizes the preparation of the low-loss silicon nitride optical waveguide.
The invention also comprises a dry-method wet-method treatment method for improving the surface of the film before and after film deposition and etching.
The lower cladding and the upper cladding are not limited to silica films, or other materials with relatively low refractive index, and the materials with relatively low refractive index are not limited to silica films, quartz and glass. The growth of the lower cladding and the upper cladding by film forming means comprises the steps of using dry oxygen or wet oxygen thermal oxidation, chemical vapor deposition, sputtering and evaporation.
The core layer is not limited to silicon nitride or other materials with relatively high refractive index, the materials with relatively high refractive index comprise silicon nitride, aluminum gallium arsenic and silicon carbide, and the growth of the core layer film forming means comprises chemical vapor deposition, molecular beam epitaxy, sputtering and evaporation.
The silicon oxide films of the lower cladding and the upper cladding are thicker; the core layer silicon nitride film has a typical thickness of hundreds of nanometers.
The substrate is not limited to a silicon substrate, but includes, but is not limited to, other substrates of SOI and sapphire.
The photoetching comprises the preparation of a waveguide layout; gluing the wafer; transferring the graph; etching by reactive ions; including but not limited to proximity, contact, step exposure, nanoimprint, self-assembly.
The growth rate of the side wall silicon nitride is slow and can be almost ignored, and the realization method of the anisotropic silicon nitride deposition method comprises a substrate bias voltage and a deposition-etching circulation method or is realized by combining wet etching back etching based on the difference of the growth rate of the side wall and the planar film.
The planarization method removes the silicon nitride film at the high position, stops on the silicon oxide lower cladding layer, and the silicon nitride at the bottom of the groove is not influenced by planarization.
1. According to the preparation method of the low-loss silicon nitride waveguide, disclosed by the invention, the roughness of the side wall of the groove is reduced to a sub-nanometer level by using a silicon oxide reflux method, and then the groove is filled by introducing an anisotropic film deposition technology, and the etching of a waveguide core layer is avoided by matching with chemical mechanical planarization. Thereby reducing core plasma damage and sidewall roughness.
2. The invention discloses a preparation method of a low-loss silicon nitride waveguide, which avoids the roughness loss of the side wall of the waveguide caused by etching of a core layer under the condition of not increasing the complexity of the method. Meanwhile, by using the weakly bound waveguide, most of the energy of light is transmitted in the silicon oxide while the waveguide core layer is defined by the silicon nitride, so that the waveguide loss can be obviously reduced, and the preparation of the low-loss silicon nitride waveguide compatible with a CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) method platform is effectively realized.
3. The invention discloses a preparation method of a low-loss silicon nitride waveguide, which uses a method compatible with a CMOS platform and utilizes an anisotropic groove filling and chemical mechanical grinding method to avoid etching and direct grinding of a waveguide core layer, thereby avoiding the loss caused by surface roughness and damage of the core layer. The method can be compatible with the weak-bound optical waveguide structure, and further realizes the preparation of the low-loss silicon nitride optical waveguide.
4. The invention discloses a preparation method of a low-loss silicon nitride waveguide, which improves the appearance and optical loss of silicon nitride through high-temperature annealing.
Drawings
FIG. 1 is a schematic flow chart of an embodiment of a method for fabricating a low-loss silicon nitride waveguide and an illustration of the method steps;
fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a waveguide structure according to an embodiment of the present invention. Reference numbers in the figures: 1-substrate, 2-silicon oxide lower cladding, 3-silicon oxide upper cladding, 4-silicon nitride core layer, and 5-groove for defining waveguide.
Detailed Description
The invention is further described below with reference to fig. 2.
Example 1:
as shown in fig. 1 and fig. 2, the method for manufacturing a low-loss silicon nitride waveguide disclosed in this embodiment includes:
According to the relation between scattering loss and roughness:
where α represents the waveguide scattering loss, κ is 0.48, n is the waveguide effective index, k is the vacuum wavenumber, d is half the waveguide width, and σ is the waveguide top and sidewall roughness, it can be seen that the loss decreases as the square of the roughness decreases.
The above description is only an embodiment of the present invention, but the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, and any modifications, equivalents, improvements, etc. made by those skilled in the art within the technical scope of the present invention are included in the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.
Claims (10)
1. A preparation method of a low-loss silicon nitride waveguide is characterized by comprising the following steps: comprises the following steps of (a) carrying out,
the method comprises the following steps: preparing a wafer substrate and cleaning the substrate;
step two: growing a thick silicon oxide lower cladding layer on the substrate;
step three: using photoetching and etching methods to complete pattern transfer, forming a groove on the lower cladding, and completing the pattern definition of the waveguide;
step four: carrying out high-temperature annealing on the waveguide to realize the reflux of the silicon oxide;
step five: growing an anisotropic silicon nitride film by using an anisotropic deposition method;
step six: growing a core layer protective layer silicon oxide film by using a chemical vapor deposition method;
step seven: using a chemical mechanical planarization method to perform chemical mechanical polishing planarization on the wafer, and removing the silicon nitride film at the high position;
step eight: high-temperature annealing is carried out to improve the appearance and optical loss of the silicon nitride;
step nine: and growing a thick silicon oxide film to finish the upper cladding and finish the preparation of the low-loss silicon nitride waveguide.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of forming a low loss silicon nitride waveguide comprises: also comprises a dry-method wet-method processing method for improving the surface of the film before and after film deposition and etching.
3. A method of manufacturing a low loss silicon nitride waveguide according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: the silicon nitride core layer defines the optical waveguide, so that the energy of light is mainly transmitted in the silicon oxide, and the characteristic of ultralow optical loss of the silicon oxide can be utilized; the groove is filled through anisotropic film deposition, and a silicon nitride core layer is formed in a planarization mode, so that the silicon nitride core layer is prevented from being etched and directly ground, and the loss caused by surface roughness and damage of a core layer is avoided; the side wall of the silicon nitride is small while weak light binding is realized through the thin silicon nitride core layer, so that the influence of the side wall roughness on the light loss is further reduced; the thinner silicon nitride core layer is thinner than the prior art silicon nitride waveguide; the method can be compatible with the weak-bound optical waveguide structure, and further realizes the preparation of the low-loss silicon nitride optical waveguide.
4. A method of manufacturing a low loss silicon nitride waveguide according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: the lower cladding and the upper cladding are not limited to silica films or other materials with relatively low refractive indexes, and the materials with relatively low refractive indexes are not limited to silica films, quartz and glass; the growth of the lower cladding and the upper cladding by film forming means comprises the steps of using dry oxygen or wet oxygen thermal oxidation, chemical vapor deposition, sputtering and evaporation.
5. A method of manufacturing a low loss silicon nitride waveguide according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: the core layer is not limited to silicon nitride or other materials with relatively high refractive index, the materials with relatively high refractive index comprise silicon nitride, aluminum gallium arsenic and silicon carbide, and the growth of the core layer film forming means comprises chemical vapor deposition, molecular beam epitaxy, sputtering and evaporation.
6. A method of manufacturing a low loss silicon nitride waveguide according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: the silicon oxide films of the lower cladding and the upper cladding are thicker; the core layer silicon nitride film has a typical thickness of hundreds of nanometers.
7. A method of manufacturing a low loss silicon nitride waveguide according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: the substrate is not limited to a silicon substrate, or other substrate that is, but not limited to, SOI, sapphire.
8. A method of manufacturing a low loss silicon nitride waveguide according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: the layout preparation involved in the lithography is not limited to waveguide: only by taking the waveguide as an example, the preparation method connotes the preparation of a layout with any graphical shape; gluing the wafer; transferring the graph; etching by reactive ions; including but not limited to proximity, contact, step exposure, nanoimprint, self-assembly.
9. A method of manufacturing a low loss silicon nitride waveguide according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: the growth rate of the side wall silicon nitride is slow and can be almost ignored, and the realization method of the anisotropic silicon nitride deposition method comprises a substrate bias voltage and a deposition-etching circulation method or is realized by combining wet etching back etching based on the difference of the growth rate of the side wall and the planar film.
10. A method of manufacturing a low loss silicon nitride waveguide according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: the planarization method removes the silicon nitride film at the high position, stops on the silicon oxide lower cladding layer, and the silicon nitride at the bottom of the groove is not influenced by planarization.
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Cited By (1)
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CN115951450A (en) * | 2022-12-29 | 2023-04-11 | 上海铭锟半导体有限公司 | Damascus silicon nitride waveguide chemical mechanical polishing method |
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