Planar chalcogenide glass materials and devices

The intrinsic advantages of small footprint, low fabrication cost and immunity to electromagnetic interference make planar photonic device technologies a promising solution to a number of key technical challenges. The examples include high-speed telecommunication, on-chip optical interconnect, imaging and photovoltaics. Another important area planar photonic technologies may penetrate into is biochemical sensing. High precision optical metrology tools can be applied to detect optical property changes associated with the presence of biological or chemical molecules, leading to sensitive, rapid detection of these molecular species. In this thesis, we focus on the development of novel photonic materials and devices that address the emerging need in the field of biochemical sensing. Chalcogenide glasses have been identified as the material of choice for sensing due to their wide infrared transparency window; on the device side, we have fabricated optical resonator devices that dramatically amplify the photon-molecule interactions towards highly sensitive detection. We have developed and optimized a lift-off patterning technique for Si-CMOS backend compatible fabrication of high-index-contrast (HIC) chalcogenide glass devices. A thermal reflow technique further removes the sidewall roughness resulting from the patterning process and is shown to effectively reduce the scattering loss in chalcogenide glass waveguides. Using the lift-off technology, we have demonstrated the first microring and micro-disk resonators in chalcogenide glasses, with a record loaded cavity quality factor (Q-factor) exceeding 2 x 105.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Hu, Juejun

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lionel C. Kimerling.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/54562

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/54562