Tsay Candice, Zha Yunlai, Arnold Craig B
Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Opt Express. 2010 Dec 6;18(25):26744-53. doi: 10.1364/OE.18.026744.
Chalcogenide glass materials exhibit a variety of optical properties that make them desirable for near- and mid-infrared communications and sensing applications. However, processing limitations for these photorefractive materials have made the direct integration of waveguides with sources or detectors challenging. Here we demonstrate the viability of two complementary soft lithography methods for patterning and integrating chalcogenide glass waveguides from solution. One method, micro-molding in capillaries (MIMIC), is shown to fabricate multi-mode As(2)S(3) waveguides which are directly integrated with quantum cascade lasers (QCLs). In a second method, we demonstrate the ability of micro-transfer molding (µTM), to produce arrays of single mode rib waveguides (2.5 µm wide and 4.5 µm high) over areas larger than 6 cm(2) while maintaining edge roughness below 5.1 nm. These methods form a suite of processes that can be applied to chalcogenide solutions to create a diverse array of mid-IR optical and photonic structures ranging from <5 to 10's of µm in dimension.
硫族化物玻璃材料展现出多种光学特性，这使得它们在近红外和中红外通信及传感应用中颇具吸引力。然而，这些光折变材料的加工限制使得波导与光源或探测器的直接集成颇具挑战。在此，我们展示了两种互补的软光刻方法用于从溶液中对硫族化物玻璃波导进行图案化和集成的可行性。一种方法是毛细管微模塑（MIMIC），它能制造出与量子级联激光器（QCL）直接集成的多模As(2)S(3)波导。在第二种方法中，我们展示了微转移模塑（µTM）能够在大于6平方厘米的区域上制造单模脊形波导阵列（宽2.5微米、高4.5微米），同时保持边缘粗糙度低于5.1纳米。这些方法构成了一套可应用于硫族化物溶液的工艺，以创建尺寸从小于5微米到数十微米不等的各种中红外光学和光子结构。
