First developments for photonics integrated on plasma-polymer-HMDSO: Single-mode TE00–TM00 straight waveguides

The authors present the design, realization and characterization of photonics integrated made up of organosilicon (SiOxCyHz) materials called hexamethyldisiloxane plasma polymers (pp-HMDSO), elaborated by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD). Such a versatile technique offers the noticeable advantage to allow the control of respectively; the value of the refractive indices, the thickness of each layer while entailing a lower stress, as the gas proportion of precursors (HMDSO) and plasma conditions are conveniently adjusted. The cladding and core layers of such waveguides have been elaborated into the same reactor thanks to the same precursors with relevant changes regarding the plasma parameters. Then, various integrated photonics devices have been realized, from planar to single-mode rib waveguides. Such structures prove to yield a good single-mode confinement for both polarisations. Moreover optical losses ascribed to pp-HMDSO structures have been respectively evaluated to 5.6 and 11.5 dB cm−1 for TE00 and TM00 optical modes. Hence, pp-HMDSO and PECVD appear as quite promising techniques for devising ultra-integrated components with lower length like microresonators, and many another functional devices.