Novel Optical Materials for Passive Photonic Applications
type: CreativeWork
description: Advances in photonic materials are critical to the progress of photonic devices and optical systems. Even though a variety of materials, e.g. semiconductors, oxide based glasses, and polymers exist which are being used for numerous applications, there is a growing need to develop and find new materials in order to push the limits we are bound by with conventional materials, in pursuit of higher performance, higher levels of integration and lower cost. In this realm, new material development has had a considerable impact, as it is the material properties (optical, thermal, mechanical, electrical, ...) in addition to their processing and compatibilities with standard processes that enable us the creation of entirely new devices or improve the performance of currently available optical devices. In this dissertation, I will demonstrate the application of two new materials for novel photonic components. In the first part of the dissertation, I discuss how a hybrid approach to the silicon photonics platform can reduce thermal sensitivity using sol-gel based inorganic-organic hybrid materials. The approach is to design the optical waveguide so that it maintains its performance in a passive manner in response to environmental temperature variations and, thus, does not need external temperature control resulting in reduced electrical power consumption. Sol-gel materials are well-known, but they haven’t been exploited like polymers and titanium dioxide to be cladding layers to enable athermal silicon waveguides. In this work I show their advantages with respect to previous materials that were employed for athermal microring resonators. I studied the thermal curing parameters of the sol-gel and its effect on thermal wavelength shift of the microring resonance. With this method, I was able to achieve a thermal shift down to -6.8 pm/°C for transverse electric (TE) polarization, as well as thermal shifts below 1 pm/°C for transverse magnetic (TM) polarization in the C band under …
abstract: Advances in photonic materials are critical to the progress of photonic devices and optical systems. Even though a variety of materials, e.g. semiconductors, oxide based glasses, and polymers exist which are being used for numerous applications, there is a growing need to develop and find new materials in order to push the limits we are bound by with conventional materials, in pursuit of higher performance, higher levels of integration and lower cost. In this realm, new material development has had a considerable impact, as it is the material properties (optical, thermal, mechanical, electrical, ...) in addition to their processing and compatibilities with standard processes that enable us the creation of entirely new devices or improve the performance of currently available optical devices. In this dissertation, I will demonstrate the application of two new materials for novel photonic components. In the first part of the dissertation, I discuss how a hybrid approach to the silicon photonics platform can reduce thermal sensitivity using sol-gel based inorganic-organic hybrid materials. The approach is to design the optical waveguide so that it maintains its performance in a passive manner in response to environmental temperature variations and, thus, does not need external temperature control resulting in reduced electrical power consumption. Sol-gel materials are well-known, but they haven’t been exploited like polymers and titanium dioxide to be cladding layers to enable athermal silicon waveguides. In this work I show their advantages with respect to previous materials that were employed for athermal microring resonators. I studied the thermal curing parameters of the sol-gel and its effect on thermal wavelength shift of the microring resonance. With this method, I was able to achieve a thermal shift down to -6.8 pm/°C for transverse electric (TE) polarization, as well as thermal shifts below 1 pm/°C for transverse magnetic (TM) polarization in the C band under …
author: Namnabat, Soha
language: en_US
keywords: Infrared optical material, Polymers, Silicon photonics, Sol-gel materials, Athermal waveguides
date published: 2016
date modified: 2026-07-24T00:55:10Z
provider: University of Arizona
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The University of Arizona.

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/10150/623168