Foundry produced SU-8 inverted-rib waveguide-based components

Abstract

Photonic devices based on polymer waveguides have potential use because they can be fabricated by high-volume manufacturing techniques. These integrated photonic devices can potentially be applied to communications and sensing as they can be produced in a short cycle and at low cost. In this report, we present foundry fabrication of polymer-based photonic integrated circuits. The inverted-rib waveguide components are about 2 μm wide and 0.570 μm deep. Spincoated SU-8 polymer onto SiO2 is used to compose the guiding layer. In our preliminary results, we highlight the design, manufacturing, and characterization of microracetrack resonator notch filters. Those components were fabricated using complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) foundry process. Full wafers were processed at the foundry's 150 mm-facility. Compact micro racetrack resonators based on SU-8 polymer are demonstrated, presenting high coupling efficiency. Facet sidewall roughness was reduced in the chip dies using mechanical polishing processes. We believe these results are promising for applications ranging from telecommunication components to sensing applications at low cost.