title: Serpentine low loss trapezoidal silica waveguides on silicon.
abstract: We report the fabrication and characterization of straight and serpentine low loss trapezoidal silica waveguides integrated on a silicon substrate. The waveguide channel was defined using a dual photo-lithography and buffered HF etching and isolated from the silicon substrate using an isotropic silicon etchant. The waveguide is air-clad and thus has a core-cladding effective index contrast of approximately 25%. Measured at 658, 980 and 1550 nm, the propagation loss was found to be 0.69, 0.59, and 0.41 dB/cm respectively, with a critical bending radius less than 375 μm. The waveguide's polarization behavior was investigated both theoretically and experimentally. Additionally, the output power shows a linear response with input power up to 200 mW.
authors.affiliation: Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA.
authors.forename: Xiaomin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Harrison
authors.forename: Audrey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Harker
authors.forename: Andrea M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Armani
mesh_terms: D004735:Energy Transfer; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D055096:Optical Devices; D012825:Silicon / Q000737:chemistry*; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry*; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance / Q000295:instrumentation*
chemical_list: D012822:Silicon Dioxide; D012825:Silicon