Product Code: PIC06_M301

Fabrication of C-Band Resonant Structures in Rib Waveguides
Authors:
Andrew Lee, Macquarie University; Sydney Australia
Presented at PICALO 2006

With the drive towards fabrication of "on-chip" optical technologies, there is a need to develop effective, compact, optical components. In this paper we present results on the fabrication of rib waveguide structures using SU8 which are then processed using direct laser ablation to rapidly prototype functional devices (operating in the communications band) such as Bragg filters and two dimensional photonic crystals. Laser ablation allows excellent control of the positioning and depth of ablated features within the waveguide, allowing us to tailor the reflectivity (in the case of a Bragg grating) of the structure while minimizing out of plane losses (in order to maintain an efficient optical device). We have demonstrated Bragg gratings with reflectivity greater than 15 dB at 1550 nm in these waveguides. Current experimental efforts are focused on prototyping different resonant structures within the rib waveguides such as delay lines and high-Q cavities.