AVS 49th International Symposium
    Photonic Materials Topical Conference Thursday Sessions
       Session PH-ThM

Invited Paper PH-ThM5
The Fabrication and Properties of Silicon-based Three-dimensional Photonic Lattices

Thursday, November 7, 2002, 9:40 am, Room C-111B

Session: Photonic Nanostructures
Presenter: J.G. Fleming, Sandia National Laboratories
Authors: J.G. Fleming, Sandia National Laboratories
S.-Y. Lin, Sandia National Laboratories
Correspondent: Click to Email
Three-dimensional photonic lattices are structurally complex elements with submicron minimum feature sizes when active in the infrared. While photonic lattices were proposed over 15 year ago and were demonstrated in the millimeter regime relatively quickly, progress towards infrared and lower wavelength structures has been slow due to fabrication challenges. However, such structures can now be readily fabricated using modifications of standard silicon processing techniques. The minimum feature sizes required to manipulate 1.5 micron radiation, 0.2 microns, are now well within the capabilities of current lithographic tools and planarity can be maintained using chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). This approach has numerous advantages, the required infrastructure is in place and is very well supported, there is a high level of control over individual feature sizes and positions and the final structures possess full three dimensional bandgaps. The ability to carefully control the position and size of structures is of critical importance to the creation of waveguides and cavities. The disadvantage of the approach is that, while the infrastructure is well established, the initial capital investment required is substantial. However, if a suitable "killer application" can be found it would be possible to quickly apply this infrastructure to the fabrication of such devices. In this presentation we will outline the range of structures that have been achieved, examples of process flows, and the properties of the structures obtained.