Towards SiN photonic platform: plasma-free manufacturing process flow. Deposition, oxidation, and wet etching of silicon nitride

• Giuseppe Libero Bufi ^[1] ; Louw Roel van der Zon ^[1] ; Adrián Fernández ^[1] ; César Alminyana ^[1] ; Isabelle Rodriguez ^[1] ; Pascual Muñoz ^[1] ; Daniel Pastor ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

     Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

     Valencia, España

     
• Localización: Conectando la academia y la industria: Libro de actas OPTOEL 2023 / coord. por Alejandro Carballar Rincón, María del Rosario Fernández Ruiz, 2024
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Silicon nitride (SiN) is playing a promising role in integrated photonics thanks to its wide transparency window. Plasma-based processes are commonly used to deposit and pattern the SiN and silicon oxide (SiO2) layers. Nevertheless, sometimes plasma-free manufacturing processes can be preferred due to special requirements or simply a lack of tools. Here, a fully plasmaless manufacturing process flow is presented. LPCVD, thermal wetoxidation and wet-etching of silicon nitride are studied and characterized. It has been proved that the thermal oxidation of the silicon nitride layer does get a silicon oxide layer thick enough to act as etchmask during the wet-etching of the silicon nitride in phosphoric acid at 155ºC.